


The Things Left In Our Wake

by We_Have_Become_Anathema



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Don't worry, Fishing, Gay Sex, Hallucinations, Hand Jobs, Hate Sex, Isolation, Leaving the doggos behind, M/M, Mild Gore, No doggos are harmed, Possessive Hannibal Hallucination is Possessive, Sailing, Self-Discovery, Semi-graphic description of Will killing a fish, Sleep Deprivation, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, This is meant to fill in the gap where Will goes sailing, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-09-29 19:36:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 43,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17209673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/We_Have_Become_Anathema/pseuds/We_Have_Become_Anathema
Summary: "Things were always going wrong. Single handing Nola was an exercise in tight rope walking a razor edge between chaos and tranquillity. It was exactly what he needed however, everything from the fifteen-minute cat naps to the sudden and inescapable moments of harrowing activity staunching calamities before they could ruin everything. It left him tired, true, but usually it left him too tired to think, only enough mental acuity left for watching the wind, sails, and seas.What had been left in his wake was behind him, never to be seen again once the waves rolled away.He was sailing toward a goal but he couldn’t let himself think about that yet either, because just like the wake was gone behind him, the goal was over a horizon he hadn’t arrived at yet. There was no beginning, but he was hoping he could make an end to their story. He needed to find Hannibal again and ask him the most important question, the only one that mattered in the crystalline moment between death and rebirth.Why?"The "Will Goes Sailing Across the Atlantic" fic you've all been waiting for...





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I use nautical terms throughout this work without descriptions of what they mean beyond their context. However I have complied a glossary for you all to reference. I hope this helps. 
> 
> [LINK](https://1drv.ms/w/s!AtJk1ugLcDOLsR_3mYo2SAUW-BQT)
> 
> I have spent a good portion of my life sailing. I have circumnavigated the globe with my family, single handed racing dinghies, and competed in friendly sail boat race competitions. Much of this story comes from elements of my own life and my experiences on the water. While I have never single-handed a boat, I have known several single-handers and have taken elements of their own journeys to add further believably to Will's adventure. Of course some of the elements will be exaggerated or minimised in order to further the plot and Will's journey of self-discovery, but to the best of my ability I have written this to be a fair and accurate portrayal of life at sea. 
> 
> This has been a labour of love for me and something I am overjoyed to finally share with all of you. 
> 
> I deeply hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> Fair winds and following seas,  
> We_Have_Become_Anathema
> 
> P.S. The glorious [moistdrippings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moistdrippings/pseuds/moistdrippings) has been the beta reader for this story and I could not have written this without their enthusiasm, patient editing, and constant support. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting the prologue and first chapter together as I'll be offline for the next two days sailing from San José del Cabo to Puerto Viarta.
> 
> Once I'm back online, I will be posting a chapter a day. The story is already finished, so you needn't worry about orphaned story syndrome. Heh.

Will once believed that there was a beginning to everything, a clear, delineable point at which something started. He didn’t believe that anymore, or rather he couldn’t. Maybe it was the encephalitis, maybe it had damaged more of his brain than the doctors ever let on. Or maybe it was just Hannibal Lecter, harming him with a thousand little cuts, a million betrayals that led up to a knife point slicing through his gut and left him bleeding on the floor. 

It would be comforting to have a point in time to look back on and think, “Ah, there it is. This is when everything changed.” 

There was no point. 

As if he could see the past and present and future as one whole, not a continuum like his stream but as a sphere of existence, there was never a single event that could be called the beginning. 

There was no time in the dream, just the impending sense of soon, a shapeless anxiety that settled into his bones with a virulent hunger. The anxiety stalked him, its horns scraping as it ducked under the boom and peered down the companionway into his aft cabin. It grinned with blooded teeth in its horrendous maw, opening to speak to him. Whatever words it spoke however were pulled away by the silence that engulfed him.

The silence was deafening.

The horned anxiety moved down the ladder steps with a motion no human body could recreate, folding itself to fit inside his cabin, too long limbs skeletal thin as it reached for him. Light fell over its features and he recognised the wendigo for what it was, he saw Hannibal’s maroon eyes staring out at him from that cadaverous face.

He recoiled.

He dreamed but it shattered as his head slammed against the floorboards. 

Just what he needed, fresh head trauma. 

Although the fall winded him he found he could focus enough to sit up after a few moments. The world rocked on its axis, a wild bucking thing that disagreed with his stomach. Memory took longer than it should have to catch up with observation, the last vestiges of sleep determined to hold him tight, not wanting to let go, but the last cobwebs parted all at once and he was painfully aware of the present. It was marginally better than the past at least. 

Shoving to his feet, one hand gripped tight to the edge of his berth, he planted his feet wide against the yawing of the boat and tried to get his bearings. Something felt wrong about the motion, it was different than when he’d gone to sleep. 

Shit. How long had he been sleeping? 

The sudden beeping of his watch’s alarm answered the question as he silenced it, fifteen minutes, same as any other nap. Couldn’t let it go too long in case anything went wrong, and by the way Nola was pitching something had gone wrong. 

His money was on a wind shift. He’d seen a squall miles off before he’d headed down for the nap, wouldn’t be surprising if it had just rolled in faster than he’d been expecting. It didn’t have to fully reach him to affect the him either, squalls often created their own localised winds when they let go of their rain. 

Best to go take a look. 

Keeping one hand for himself and one for the boat, he shuffled out from his bunk and climbed up the companionway ladder like a drunken sailor, bobbing in time with the waves. 

The moment his head broke out from the companionway he knew what was wrong, could feel it on his face along with the fat rain drops pelting him, the wind was coming from the transom. The main was backwinded from an accidental jibe, the preventer having either given way or snapped under the strain. A stanchion and a portion of the life lines bent and broken where the preventer had tried to make its last stand and failed. It wasn’t unfixable, certainly, but it was annoying. Everything was annoying with this little sleep.

With the squall, the sky had darkened, the rain coming down hard and fast and cold. He wasn’t in to tropical enough latitudes yet to have warm tropical storms. The pale grey light washed out the warm wood detailing of Nola’s cockpit, the rain making it harder to get a firm grip as he closed the hatch to the aft cabin behind him.  

He mulled over what he needed to do first, drawing up a list in his mind to still his thoughts into some semblance of order. The greater the danger, the faster his pendulum released from its clasp, swinging until the moment stopped and time reversed, only this time he needed it to just stop. He already knew what happened, he didn’t need to recreate it, but even as he told his mind that, it had already begun recreating the scene. His imagination strained like a horse with a bit in its mouth, fighting the harsh control he’d imposed on it since...

Since when? 

Since Hannibal. 

He couldn’t afford to imagine. Too many dark secrets in his mind crept out when he let his imagination loose.

The slate waves laughed as they crashed against the hull, mocking him.  Voices in the seafoam warned him he was going crazy again. Fever wasn’t the only thing that could rob him of his faculties; isolation could do that just as easily.

In his mind the main jibed again. He could feel the boat shudder beneath him from the raw force of it; the tamed wind breaking free and wrenching his boat apart, piece by pitiful piece. Just because he had the tiger by the tail didn’t mean it had changed a single molecule of its nature. The wind seemed such a gentle thing when you stood on the shore and it played with your jacket, but he’d been through enough storms to respect the power held there. 

Knocking his fist against his hip helped bring him back from his mind, back to the awkward present where his boat was sideways to the waves and backwinded. Right, time to act.

Thankfully he could still lose himself in this, in the mechanical actions of repair. First a glance to the wind vane, finding the new direction of the wind from the damn squall, then a glance to the compass to check the heading against what he remembered just before he’d gone down for the nap. Not too far off course then, just the wind shifting, so Nola couldn’t have been stuck like this for too long. 

Punching in the button to disengage the autopilot, he grabbed the wheel guard and slipped behind the wheel, turning hard to port to force her back around through the wind. It was safer than trying to jibe the main again, especially when he didn’t have a spare preventer ready on deck. There was one down in the lazaret somewhere, he knew, but knowing exactly where it was under the mess of supplies was another matter. So long as he could get her righted and back into a beam reach, the sails at a forty-five degree angle while the boat was perpendicular to the wind, everything would sort itself out. 

The waves laughed at his naivety again, susurrus voices in the transom wake hinting that nothing would sort itself out ever again. 

There was no beginning but there had to be an end. Wasn’t that what he was sailing towards? The end?

He brought the bow back up into the wind, enough boat speed left that he didn’t have to turn the motor on to maintain steerage, and Nola came around and then fell off enough to start sailing again. The jib and main weren’t sheeted right by a long shot, the wind shift the culprit as he returned to his previous compass heading, but that would be easy to fix once he got the autopilot reengaged.

The button took three tries before he pushed it hard enough to see the pilot display flash to life again, the course heading showing rather than the fault code that had been flashing before. Keeping his weight low and balanced over the balls of his feet, one hand skimming along the storm rails and his other hand dancing over the slack life lines, he got to the jib’s winch and put a handle into the cogs. Wrapping his hand around the tailing end of the jib sheet, he began grinding in, keeping his eyes trained on the luff of the jib and the tell tails. Once he had them flying again and was satisfied with the shape of the jib, he shifted over to the main sheet and started grinding in the boom. If the weather got any worse he’d need to either drop the main entirely or throw in another reef, but for now he could hold this reasonably safely. 

So long as he didn’t try sleeping again. 

Funny, he hadn’t thought that sailing would bring him back to the precipice of sleep deprivation that the encephalitis had forced on him, or at least the feel of it. The fever hadn’t deprived him of sleep, just of restful sleep. Close enough. Was it the same thing? 

Running a hand through his windblown hair and feeling clammy from the moisture laden air, he let out a breath. The squall would pass and he didn’t see any other storms on the horizon, although he knew his visible range was only about five miles, maybe a little less. He’d have long enough to try and find that preventer, and hopefully this one wouldn’t let go; which reminded him.

He knelt on the deck and picked up the preventer still connected to the bottom half of the block and tackle, and it wasn’t hard to see what had happened. The outer sheath of the rope had rubbed through and snapped, leaving the inner core to stretch out. So, the rope hadn’t strictly speaking let go, the core had just lengthened enough to allow the jibe. That didn’t make him feel much better, it meant he’d been too stingy to put a fresh rope on once the old had started to look its age. He couldn’t afford not to replace parts that showed wear and tear, not while he was out here alone. 

If only he could replace himself as he showed signs of wear and tear too, but at least he was capable of fixing the boat.

Cursing under his breath, he left the broken hardware where it was and went down to check the lazaret for the replacement, keeping an ear trained for the sound of the waves in case the wind decided to shift again. 

Things were always going wrong. Single handing Nola was an exercise in tight rope walking a razor edge between chaos and tranquillity. It was exactly what he needed however, everything from the fifteen-minute cat naps to the sudden and inescapable moments of harrowing activity staunching calamities before they could ruin everything. It left him tired, true, but usually it left him too tired to think, only enough mental acuity left for watching the wind, sails, and seas. 

What had been left in his wake was behind him, never to be seen again once the waves rolled away. 

He was sailing toward a goal but he couldn’t let himself think about that yet either, because just like the wake was gone behind him, the goal was over a horizon he hadn’t arrived at yet. There was no beginning, but he was hoping he could make an end to their story. He needed to find Hannibal again and ask him the most important question, the only one that mattered in the crystalline moment between death and rebirth. 

Why?


	2. Chapter 2

“--ill, Will? You haven’t fed the dogs today yet, have you?” 

Will scrubbed a hand over his eyes, coming away with grit from sleeping. His head felt like it had been stuffed with steel wool and dental floss, a fuzzy sort of pain. He turned his head looking for the owner of the voice, but as he woke the memory of the dream was running through his fingers like so much sand. He’d heard someone speaking to him, he’d wanted to answer them. Who was it?  

They’d said something about the dogs, hadn’t they? 

The dogs, that was something concrete he could think about. Straining to listen, he waited to see if it was the dogs that had woken him in the first place. His mouth felt like a desert and it hurt to swallow, tasted like he’d brushed his teeth with Jack Daniels, which meant he probably had forgotten to brush at all last night. He tried to sit up and pain lanced through his core, bringing moisture to his eyes that wouldn’t quite turn to tears with the sudden severity of it. He fell back to the mattress and just breathed, hand moving reflexively to the scar across his belly, fingers spread wide but still not able to cover it from one end to the other.  

He knew better from the physical therapy than to try and sit up like he’d used to, the sudden crunch of muscle hell on his healing abdomen. Instead he admitted defeat and rolled over onto his side, pushing up with his arms so he wouldn’t have to abuse his core so early in the morning. Was it morning? He ran his hand over his stubble and tried to get his eyes to focus on the alarm clock beside the bed. 10:06. Morning or evening? Light poured in, cool and grey, the pain in his scarred shoulder telling him a storm was approaching. Morning then.  

Winston came over and licked at his fingers curled over the edge of the bed, looking up at him with those soulful eyes that saw too much.  

He had to look away.  

He hadn’t fed the dogs yet today.  

That reminded him of the dream, whose had the voice been? A part of him knew who the voice had been, not because he remembered it but because of the conflicted sense of calm that he still felt. It had been Hannibal, must have been. He cursed him, the first time of the day, as he pushed up from the bed and eased up into a stretch. The man had shattered his life in so many ways, but he still woke from dreams where they were friends, where just the sound of his voice calmed the storm raging in his mind.  

He hated him for that, maybe even more than for the rest of it.  

 _"You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in._    
_Take me in, tender woman._    
_Take me in, for heaven's sake._    
_Take me in, tender woman," sighed the snake._  

His frown deepened as the lyrics came to mind in the middle of the stretch. He hadn’t known Hannibal had been a snake, not the first time, but hadn’t he known the second time around? He’d meant to catch him but he’d been caught instead. How deeply had he fooled himself in order to catch him? Too deeply, because in the end he’d told him of the trap and encouraged him to go. 

His gut clenched painfully and he threw out an arm, half to support him against the wall before he fell and half just to externalise the pain he wasn’t willing to analyse. He’d had more than enough analysis of himself for a lifetime.  

The morning routine gave him something constructive to focus on, banishing Hannibal from his thoughts the way a child would banish the bogeyman in the light of day. See? No monster under the bed. See? No monster in the closet. See? It was just the tree branch scratching against your window in the storm.  

Once Hobbs would have flashed whispering ‘see’ to prove the monsters were still there in the morning light, but thankfully that nightmare had passed. 

Stretching and morning physical therapy took precedence; he needed to be able to walk without his stomach unmanning him with its aches and twinges. Two months out and it was better, but he was a long way from healed. The scar tissue was particular and he had to keep working at it not to lose range of motion. He’d never thought the doctors would make him take up yoga, but it was that or crouch in on himself like an 80-year-old. The choice wasn’t hard. Once he felt that his muscles had loosened up enough to cooperate, he cleaned up, trimming his burgeoning beard for the first time in a week until it was just his usual stubble. He washed his face, wet his hair, and generally made himself look a little more like a human being than just another one of the pack. Then it was time to focus on them.  

A sharp whistle brought them to heel, tails wagging without an ounce of reproach for the late hour of their breakfast. Perfect acceptance and forgiveness. No, it wasn’t forgiveness, for in their eyes there was nothing to forgive. Would any act be too great a sin to forgive? He looked at his pack of strays and thought of the signs of abuse and neglect that so many of them carried, wounds that had healed to pale scars hidden by fur. They had come to him from the highways and byways of human negligence, and yet they still had offered up their love and trust to him once he’d earned it.  

Would he be so willing to trust again after his own abuse? 

His fingers subconsciously played over the shirt covered scar. He balled his hand into a fist and let it fall to his side when he noticed, hating that touching it was something he did so frequently without meaning to. It should have been anathema to him, a no-man's land devoid of life, but it seemed as if the root of his emotional turmoil had been sewn into it when the doctors had stitched him up. They’d left a piece of Hannibal inside the wound and it was festering deep inside his gut. He was no more capable of disregarding it than his own heartbeat. It was a part of him no matter how much he hated it, the glaring sign of Hannibal’s betrayal for all the world to see, no matter how many layers he piled on top of it. Like the tell-tale heart, he could hear it under the floorboards, a constant obsession that he felt would surely drive him mad. 

Buster leaned bodily against his calf and drew his attention back to the living world. He got stuck in his head even more than he used to these days.  

He bent down to scratch behind the terrier's ear. “I know, I know, you’re all hungry, right?” 

The look that the diminutive dog gave him was so plainly patronising that he almost laughed. Buster wasn’t hungry, he was worried about the long silence, the longer stillness. He’d gotten stuck again. How long had it been? At least lost in thought wasn’t the same as losing time. 

“Sorry.” 

None of them answered him. The morning was looking up. 

He opened the back door and motioned for them to go out, planning to get their meal ready while they worked off some steam. It was so tempting to go out with them, to push himself and see how long he could run with them, go until his stomach twisted in pain and sweat poured down his skin in clammy waves. Too soon, his doctors would tan his hide if he set his physical therapy back by pushing too hard.  

Did he know how to push just hard enough so he wouldn’t run flat out but wouldn’t be stuck standing still either? 

The screen door clicked closed and he turned to prepare their breakfast and his.  

Coffee’s rich aroma drifted up a few minutes later, the liquid diet of champions as he wiped down the paws of the dogs as they came back in from the snow, fur wet and noses gleaming. He envied them their revelry. He envied so much of their simpler pleasures.  

Annie tilted her head to the side and considered him a long moment, holding up the line of animals coming inside. Finally, she gave a brief bark and licked his face almost playfully before going inside.  

He laughed at the dog’s retreating tail. “What was that for?” 

“He thought you were being morose.” 

Will went stock still, counting to ten before allowing himself to look over his shoulder at the porch.  

Abigail was leaning against the railing, blowing hot air over her plaid, fur trimmed mittens. Her eyes sparkled with conspiratorial mirth as she looked back at him, nose and ears bright red from the cold. Her scarf fashionably coifed around her neck, hiding her scar. Winter was a kinder season for her secret. “What? Am I wrong?” 

He closed his eyes and held back a sound too raw. She wasn’t real. She was dead. Jack, Alana, the doctors, everyone had been very clear about that.  

Ears perked and dark eyes inquisitive, Annie circled back around and butted her head against his shoulder. Dirt speckles showed up in stark contrast on her legs against his ivory white fur.  

Slowly he opened his eyes. She was gone. The porch was empty. 

He didn’t know whether he felt relieved or broken. He finished drying off the last few paws and followed the dogs inside, watching them start their meal with an almost manic attention.  

He hadn’t told anyone about her. Who would he tell? The only doctor who would have rubber stamped him was the very reason he was seeing her. It wasn’t the encephalitis this time, he knew that. He wasn’t sick, but he wasn’t crazy either. She was nothing more than guilt, plain and simple. Some sick, twisted part of him couldn’t let her be dead, couldn’t let go of her.  

He’d lost her once, mourned her once, so losing her the second time should have been easier. Shouldn’t it? 

A lot of things should have been easier, like fitting back into the life he’d lived. 

But he found he no longer fit the shape of that life. He’d changed somewhere between the bloody kitchen floor and his release from the hospital. It was easy to deny it at first, to hide from it, physical recovery trumped returning to work. Jack’s phone number was given its own ring tone so he could ignore it, send them all directly to message. He didn’t have a tv, didn’t get the newspaper so far out into the woods, so he could keep from reading about any new cases. He could insulate himself so far in the snow and dark that the killers would never find their way into his head again. The killers who were already in there could wait their damn turn. 

It wasn’t enough though. Even the cabin began to chafe, his daily routine of denying he was hiding from life aggravating him more as the days stretched out to weeks and then months. He needed to change everything, change his life, but even more than that he needed to change himself. He knew that he could get another job, find some other way to fill his time, but no matter how far he ran he’d never get away from himself. And at the root of it all, he was the problem. Always had been. Always would be.  

Hannibal had just been a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself as much as he wished he was. He had been a visible marker that something was already very wrong inside him. 

So, he needed a way to change everything, rid himself of the disease in his veins.  

The idea for the trip wasn’t a conscious one, just the knowledge that he needed closure and the only way to get it would be to track Hannibal down.  

If asked, Will would have denied that he’d ever planned the trip at all. Instead he would have said that it had been birthed from Zeus’ head, a fully-grown course of action with no gestation period in his own mind.  

But that simply wasn’t possible, no ocean crossing could be undertaken without forethought and provisioning. Like so many things in his life, it was something that evolved from endless late nights staring blearing at his well-lit house from the darkness of the surrounding fields, feeling adrift and alone. So utterly alone.  

There was no starting point for the plan, no beginning. It hadn’t started in the hospital while he’d suffered the indignation of Lounds publishing a story about his recovery with a photo of his naked, censored body complete with a colostomy bag. It didn’t begin later as he went through physical therapy, relearning how to sit up with his newly ravaged core strength, how to walk and balance himself, how to get dressed without catching sight of the smiling scar in his reflection. It hadn’t begun while shopping for groceries and finding more cans than fresh food in his cart.  

He couldn’t even say that it had started when Abigail had informed him that they needed to track down Hannibal and ask him why. That would have been the easiest place to put the blame, all on her narrow, trembling shoulders, but she’d only spoken the truth he’d already been contemplating for months. She was dead, so she was brave enough to say what he’d still been denying. They were both tied to Hannibal in a macabre way, and although Hannibal had severed the connection, that didn’t mean that any of them were free from each other. He could go his entire life without seeing him again but it wouldn’t free him. 

Thus, one day he woke up and he found that the plan was already in motion, he was already caught up in it with little chance to stop the ride and get off. He looked at the shambles his life had become and he simply knew he needed to do something. It wasn’t clear at first what that something was, so he tried to change his life in little ways.   

Maybe a project would be enough. He’d told himself that one of the few happy memories he had from childhood had been on the lakes as he’d watched his father fixing boat engines, the waves lapping at the hull and gently rocking them both. A boat. It would be the perfect project to sink himself into, restore something with his own two hands, something with wood to sand and varnish, with an engine to clean and restore to perfect working order. The worse off it was, the less money he’d need to spend on the boat itself, the bigger the project. 

Abigail had suggested Nola, pointed over his shoulder as he’d been scrolling down ads on Yacht World. He’d reminded himself she was just his guilt and nothing more as he clicked on the boat and looked it over.  

She’d been right, it was perfect. 

And if he was going to buy a boat and fix it up, well then it was only common sense to buy bulk food to provision it with in case he wanted to take it out some time. It was just as easy to buy enough food to provision for a month at sea as it was for a few days, easier in fact with the nature of bulk discounts. He needed a break, a way to get away from everything, from the ghost of Hannibal that haunted his quiet, hinterlands life. Even the stream was haunted by memories of Hannibal and Abigail.  

He needed to get away.


	3. Chapter 3

The wrench slipped off the nut and Will’s hand slammed into the slats of the heat sink, his knuckles splitting open. Blood spilled out, colouring the engine almost festively compared to the copious layers of grime, engine oil, and dust.  

“Fuck!” Grabbing one of his oil rags that at least had a clean corner, he wrapped it around his hand and balled his fingers into a fist around it. That wasn’t smart; the tendons shifted and the split skin pulled harder, blood spurting faster into the cloth. He hissed in pain, kicking the leg of the work bench out of frustration, which only succeeded in hurting his toes. Distraction pain had its uses, but this didn’t seem to be a good time for it. He glared at the blood seeping through the rag. 

“It seems like I’ve caught you at a bad time?”  

He spun around and saw Jack Crawford standing in the doorway of his garage, the bright winter sky turning him into little more than a silhouette until he stepped further in.  

“What are you doing here Jack?” he asked, trying his best not to bite the man’s head off because of the pain or his residual annoyance at the man.  

Jack’s gloved hands adjusted the collar of his camel hair coat, flipping it up against the chill in the air. It made him look like a bird puffing up its feathers, neck disappearing as his head sank down. It wasn’t a good look for him. He cleared his throat and looked past Will to the engine. “Figured I should check in on you.” 

“Did you?” The words were flat and nearly emotionless. He was almost proud that his snide annoyance didn’t leak through.  

“Yes.” 

They both stared at one another, neither compromising long enough to fill the awkward silence.  

Blood dripped from the rag and onto the stained garage floor.  

Will glared at his hand again and then motioned towards the house with his head, silently telling Jack to back up so he could start for the house. “I’ll need to clean this up and you can tell me the real reason you’re here.” 

“I am here to check in on you.” 

The glare was shifted to Jack, scathingly dry. The accompanying words were practically desiccated. “You’ve never been known for having a surplus of care and concern for those under your command. And seeing as I’m no longer working for you, the only reason I can imagine you being here is trying to convince me to help you with a case.” They both knew which, but maybe Jack would surprise him and try to drag him down into some fresh, new Hell.  

For a moment Jack looked as if he might get mad, but either he’d been going to anger management classes or he was willing to excuse some of Will’s usual vitriol under the pretense of all that the special agent had suffered. “I’m going to let that go. I really am here to check up on you. None of us have heard from you. I figured I’d check in and see how you’re coming along, and when you’re going to be coming back to work.” 

“I’m not.” 

Jack stared expectantly. “Not getting along or not coming back to work?” 

Sidestepping Jack, he started through the snow for the front door. Small drops of crimson against the pure snow made a bread crumb trail beside his footprints. He opened the door and whistled for the dogs, who all promptly went to investigate the stranger, effectively slowing Jack’s path to follow him into the house. 

“Work. I’m not going back. But I am healing.” 

Patting a few of the dogs on the head, Jack watched Will move to the kitchen sink and put his hand under the running faucet. The water ran rose where it poured over the injuries. He considered that a moment. “He’s still out there, Will. You’re the only one who can catch him.” 

“Why? Because you won’t give up your sanity to catch him like I did? You’ll send your trainees and your lecturing professors out to catch him because you can’t think like the monsters?” His shoulders tensed with barely controlled emotion. Eyes downcast, it wasn’t clear which emotion it was. He wished he had the thin frames of his glasses to hide behind. “I’m not going back. I’m not going to return to lecturing at Quantico and I’m certainly not going to go back to being your bloodhound.” 

Jack came inside and closed the door behind him, dimming the living room and enveloping them both in an almost intimate darkness. He shoved his gloved hands into his coat pockets. “Walk me through it then.” 

“This isn’t a crime scene, there’s nothing to explain. I’m tired and I’m calling it quits, just like I should have done a year ago. I gave you the good ol’ college try, hell, I went to jail because you didn’t believe me when I told you who and what he was.” 

If Jack noticed that Will was downright refusing to say Hannibal’s name, he didn’t show it. “No, you’re right, I didn’t believe you. But I don’t need to believe you this time, I already know who and what he is. And what’s more, I know that he’s out there somewhere, killing more people. Those victims--,” 

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Will interrupted, voice crisp and quiet, his anger growing cold like the winter he’d ensconced himself inside of rather than his usual volcanic rage. Cold anger, arctic hate was easier to hold onto, the emotional frostbite preferable to burns and blisters. “Don’t you fucking dare,” he echoed even quieter. “I don’t owe you anything. I am not responsible for his future victims. I was a professor. You took me out of the classroom and put me back into the field. If you want to feel guilty about anything, be my guest. I am done.” 

The tense silence was filled only by the scrape of canine nails on the kitchen tile as Henry went over to check on Will. The big brown mutt’s folded ears perked forward as he sniffed the blood in the air. 

He turned off the water and brushed past his dogs and his uninvited guest to get the first aid kit. He would need to clean it out, otherwise grease and oil might still be in the wound.  

“You can’t just decide not to feel guilt.” 

The industrious silence of Will treating his wounds was his only response.  

“What’s your plan then? Hide out here forever with your dogs in the woods?” 

“If it was, that would be a wonderful plan.” Will leaned his forehead to the cool mirror and closed his eyes, contemplating if he owed Jack any explanation at all. No, he didn’t owe him anything, but if he threw him a bone he might just leave sooner.  

So he squirted antiseptic onto the wounds and moved to lean against the bathroom door frame as he wrapped gauze bandages around his knuckles. “I bought a boat.” 

That seemed to surprise Jack.  

“I’m fixing up the boat. That’s its engine that I have out in the garage. I figure by the time spring rolls around I should have everything fixed up and in working order.” 

Jack shifted his weight from one foot to the other, unbuttoning his coat that was now too warm inside the house.  

“Listen, I’m not coming back, at least not for a while. I need distance, time away from things. So I’m going to fix up this boat and then I’m going to go on a trip far away from the things of man. I’ll do some fishing, some blue water sailing. It’ll be good. Hell, this is the healthy decision to step away that I should have made the first time I told you I was quitting.” 

“And this,” Jack wet his weather chapped lips, “has nothing to do with Hannibal having fled the country?” 

Will winced at the name. No matter how many times he thought of the man throughout the course of a day, he did his best not to think of his name. It made things more real, dredged up too much he wasn’t ready to examine yet. “What do you want me to say before you’ll go away? My life has nothing to do with him anymore. He, quite literally, cut himself out of my life. And you know what? I’m going to do the intelligent thing and leave it at that before it eats me alive. You should drop it too. Your obsession with the Chesapeake Ripper was always too personal, but now, after all this?” He scoffed.  

Jack narrowed his eyes.  

“But not as personal as me with Hannibal,” he nearly stumbled over the name, jaw clenching as he felt phantom pain searing in his stomach. “I called him.” 

“We know,” Jack breathed, voice barely above a whisper, “his phone records showed the call. You told him.” It wasn’t a question. 

“I told him,” Will agreed. “I wasn’t decided when I called him, I hadn’t made up my mind yet. But once I heard his voice, my mind was decided for me. I told him to run.” 

A hurt, puzzled look showed in the line between Jack’s eyebrows. 

“I wanted him to run.” 

Pain and sorrow warred with Jack’s inherent need to understand. A vein in his temple showed as he clenched his teeth. “Why?” 

“Why?” Will looked at him, gaze settling just over his right eyebrow, avoiding eye contact. “Because he was my friend.” The truth scalded his tongue, but the next words nearly undid him entirely. “Because I wanted to run away with him.” 

The truth left them both shell-shocked, trauma victims left in the wake of Hannibal Lecter.  

Jack didn’t say goodbye as he left, only closed the door behind him with a soft click. It felt like a miracle that he hadn’t pressed harder on the revelation, but then neither of them could have taken any more truth just then. 

Will didn’t watch him go, his attention was already turned to drowning that newfound truth and the pain in his knuckles under three fingers of whiskey. 

Once the alcohol was warm and heavy in the pit of his stomach, his mind pleasantly hazed through liquid comfort, the idea grew and matured. He’d wanted to go with Hannibal, hadn’t he? 

Abigail came over with a glass of water for him. “Why not go anyway?” 

He gave her a long blink as he tried to find the problem with that course of action. “Just go to Europe and track him down? He gutted me and sliced your neck open.” 

“But he didn’t kill us.” 

“Not for lack of trying.” 

She gave him an eloquent look.  

He looked away first. 

“He knew exactly how to cut us so we wouldn’t die.” 

He had no rebuttal for that.  

“You have a boat.” 

“You want to sail across the Atlantic to go track down Hannibal?” 

“No, you want to.” 

He realised she was right. He remembered she was dead and just like that he was alone again. He trailed his fingers over his shirt, brushing against one end of the scar. There were plenty of reasons, very good reason, like a scar across his belly and almost dying sort of reasons not to go track down Hannibal.  

It was an idea though, wasn’t it? 

~~~ 

It was almost two weeks later when the sound of tires on the slush covered gravel driveway pulled Will from his contemplation. He tightened his fingers around his coffee mug, noticing absently that it had gone cold at some point while he’d been looking out the window. He couldn’t remember what he’d been seeing, something inside his head rather than on the field or trees beyond. 

Alana stepped from the car, a bundle of fur and excitement pouring out after her.  What was the dog’s name again? It was something to do with food. Strawberry? Pudding? Berry? His stomach grumbled, when had he last eaten? 

He pulled the curtains open a little wider and watched her come up to the house. The way she stepped around puddles even in her winter galoshes spoke to her urban lifestyle. People in cities so rarely trusted in outdoor gear. Or maybe it was that she didn’t trust herself on the cane much yet?  

He went to open the door. “Alana.” 

“Will.” Alana’s lips curled into a ghost of a smile as he let her in, and she made herself at home leaning up against his kitchen counter. Still not used to the cane then.  

“I assume Jack sent you?” His fingers drummed on his mug. It gave his hands something to do but he didn’t want to drink it cold. He went over to the microwave and popped it in for two minutes. 

“Nobody sent me. I’m here of my own free will.” 

“But he’s worried too.” 

She relented. “True, but he’s not the reason I’m here.” 

He looked past her, eyes alighting on the dog that was in the middle of his pack. They were a mass of bright eyes, sniffing noses, and wagging tails. “Who’s this again?”  

“Applesauce.” 

Well, it was a name. Not a good one, but it was better than a white dog named Snowball. But now that she’d said it he vaguely remembered the brief introduction she’d given for the dog right after he’d been released from incarceration. She’d liked applesauce, apparently that was enough to warrant a name. Maybe naming things wasn’t one of Alana’s strong points; humans tend to keep things they name, and the only way Alana tended to keep anything was at arm’s length. If only she’d thought to do that with Hannibal as well.  

He raised his eyebrows for her to go on.  

Alana laughed, the sound bright and airy and entirely foreign in his tomb of a house. She sounded alive. Only ghosts and revenants lived here. “I guess I got spoiled watching your dogs. My house felt too empty, so I went to a pound and just sort of walked around. She found me.” 

The story was different from how most of Will’s dogs had come to him and yet the spirit of it was achingly familiar. “They usually do.” They both watched the dogs sharing pleasantries, butts sniffed and tails wagged endlessly. Domestic canine society, so perfectly simple.  

The microwave beeped. He opened it and found the ceramic handle of the mug too hot to hold comfortably, which warned him the coffee would be too hot to drink as well. He went over to introduce himself to Applesauce instead, leaving the microwave door open to remind himself to grab the mug later. “She’s gorgeous.” 

Applesauce flopped down onto her back, paws bent in as her eyes silently begged for belly rubs.  

He wasn’t a monster, he couldn’t just ignore so blatant a need. He felt eyes on him and looked up through his lashes to see Alana watching at him. The look was complicated, he didn’t know if he wanted to dissect it. They already knew they couldn’t make a go of it, it would never work. For a moment he wanted to deny that he knew it and try it anyway. The moment passed.  

“Looks like you’re regaining your core strength,” she commented with clinical detachment. She was shielding like a son of a bitch.  

For some reason that thought hurt, the dumb animal hurt he’d felt when she’d pulled away from his kiss and told him he was too unstable. Was he still too unstable? 

He hallucinated about Abigail on a regular basis. Yeah, he was still too unstable, just for different reasons now. He could argue it though, might even be able to make her believe it. He could try to make her believe that he was lost but not on fire anymore, that he could learn stability with an anchor who wasn’t determined to drag him out to sea. She wasn’t Hannibal, she wouldn’t pull his mind apart like taffy. Her dissection of him would be gentler, kinder, but at some point, she’d pull him apart as well. She wouldn’t be able to help it.  

But he could ask her to give him a reason to stay, couldn’t he?  

Fingers buried in Applesauce’s fur, he could imagine the ways his life would change. He’d wake up to the smell of coffee already started, naked under his sheets for once not because he’d sweated himself out of his clothes but because he hadn’t needed them to wrap around her soft warmth the night before. He’d come out in boxers more for the cold than for modesty’s sake, see her in the kitchen cursing his cantankerous coffee maker. She was no Hannibal, there’d be no generous meal set out for them both to eat. There’d be coffee almost made, maybe half burnt toast waiting to be buttered on a plate.  

She was no Hannibal.  

He hated that his subconscious had thought to compare them. But then they were alike, weren’t they? They’d known each other too long for Will not to see the traces of Hannibal left on her, not to smell his musk on her like a long-forgotten scent marking.  

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Abigail on her tiptoes, peeking in at them from the kitchen window.  

He didn’t want it to be Hannibal here with him, it was just that Alana was too wrapped up in all of it. He looked to her cane rather than either woman. It was a hard, medical truth. Alana would likely never walk again without it. He felt a stab of guilt for forgetting that he wasn’t the only one that Hannibal had torn apart. 

“Yeah,” he finally replied, knowing that he’d let silence go on too long for the reply to make sense. “Yeah I am. Physical therapy. How about you?” He didn’t need to specify. Maybe he wasn’t sure what aspect of her own pain he was asking after.  

She rolled her lower lip in and held her them in a thin line. It was a considering look that hid so much pain.  

He wondered if her eyes had misted but he refused to check and see. Her mute nod told him all he needed to know. She was healing, she would heal, but she’d never be the same. Any other person would say something to comfort her, to tell her things would get better. He had no such platitudes or lies.  

 “Another two months before they take the pins out,” she said as if that was the important part of her recovery, and maybe it was, a milestone to judge it by. Maybe after the pins were out she’d tell herself she wouldn’t be allowed to mourn the lost relationship anymore, all that grief wrapped up in the bitter taste of betrayal so sharp it would have broken a lesser woman.  

He looked at her, hazarded eye contact. She was flint now, sheer and ready to spark if struck again. She wasn’t a lesser woman. There were no tears in her eyes and he felt their absence like a hole in his heart. He realised he’d wanted her to cry for both of them.  

He cleared his throat, “That’s good.” 

Applesauce got up, padding over to her. She pushed her nose into Alana’s clenched fist until it relaxed and began scratching behind her ears. Whatever else people might say about dumb animals, they understood human emotion better than the humans most days. 

It was good that Alana wasn’t alone anymore. She’d do better with Applesauce to help her unclench those fists.  

Standing a bit slower than he would have ten years ago, and only partially because of his damaged core, he went over to take his mug from the microwave. Suddenly he felt his age like an ache in his bones. Faced away from her he found words spilling out of his mouth into the gulf of sorrow between them. “I’m going away for a while, try to clear my head. I’ve bought a boat, been fixing it up, another month or so and it’ll be good to go.” The shadow of a hawk passed over the patchy snow on the field behind his house. “I’ve got a kennel set up to watch the dogs while I’m away, but would you--.” 

“Would I mind checking in on them from time to time?” she interrupted, voice beatific.  

He half-turned, catching her smile in his peripheral. She was carved from marble, looking so soft and yet would be unyielding under his hands. She could never offer him a reason to stay and he wouldn’t force her into denying him that. “Yeah.” 

“No, I’ll be happy to.” 

A beat of silence before he remembered he should thank her.  

She waved it off. “Jack wanted me to come out and convince you to stay, to get back to work.” 

He stiffened, the set of his shoulders suddenly painful. 

“I told him to go to hell.” The words were rushed as if she’d been waiting to share it for too long. “You’ve suffered enough at his hands,” and whose hands it was could have been Jack’s or Hannibal’s or both. “Get away from all of this, Will,” she spoke his name like a whispered prayer. “Get away and find happiness for the both of us, for all of us.” 

It would have been easy then to cross the short distance, to put his hands on her waist and draw her in, to kiss her and buoy himself with her ironclad resolve. It would have drowned them both. She was barely holding on and he could hear it in her voice. “The next place I live, I want there to be sun and salt and sand. I’m tired of the winter.” Shadows filled the tracks of Abigail's boots and the dogs’ paws in the snow on the back field. 

That seemed to be what she’d needed to hear to release herself from the cage of guilt she’d made for herself. He heard her crying behind him, knew he wouldn’t turn around to comfort her. The sound of her footsteps retreating was cacophonous in his silent house. He turned only when he heard her close his front door behind her. 

He walked to another window and watched her car back up down his driveway, then take off down the county road. He felt Winston’s head brush up against his hand, much as Applesauce had done for Alana, and he accepted the comfort.  

“I’m going to track him down,” he said to the gathered strays, hating that he’d lose the only support structure he had when he left them behind, “and I’m going to make him answer for his crimes.” They had unfinished business, the two of them. 


	4. Chapter 4

“And how long will they be staying with us?” The secretary behind the desk sat with his fingers hovering just over the keyboard, eyes almost glassy with disinterest as he swept his gaze in Will’s direction rather than looking at Will. 

Will didn’t pay him any mind, his gaze still locked on his pack of dogs, all with collars and leashes on for once. ”A month, two at most. I’m going to be out of the country, but I’ll phone if my plans change dramatically.” 

The man typed in a few quick keystrokes. ”Alright. One to two months. I’ll just need your credit card and your account should be all set up with us. I assume you’ve already been given a tour of the grounds?” 

He shook his head. ”No, I haven’t. You came well recommended.” Pulling his wallet from his jacket pocket, he handed over his card. 

“Ah.” As he took the card, the secretary looked up at him with a modicum of curiosity, likely prompted by the lack of emotion in Will's replies. “Would you like to be given the tour?”  

“Yes.” It would give him a little longer before he had to say goodbye. He didn’t care much about the layout of the grounds, he’d read online about the amenities offered his dogs at the boarding kennel and he felt reasonably sure that they hadn’t been lying. He’d thought about coming to tour the facility before but he knew that would make the separation too real. The plan had required him to leave the dogs behind, he knew that, but he hadn’t really let himself stop long enough to think about it. Crossing an ocean with one dog was doable but unfair to the animal if it wasn't already accustomed to sailing, but doing it with his whole pack would be downright cruel.  

There was also the issue of bringing an animal to another country. Often dogs were held in quarantine for months upon arriving at a new country.  

They didn’t have any beef with Hannibal like he did, so there was no reason for them to be crammed into Nola and fight through seasickness just to keep him company.  

It wasn’t like he didn’t have the money to have them looked after while he was gone. And it wasn’t forever. He'd be back in a month or two and reunite with them all. He’d be better when he got back, finally having the closure that he needed.  

Information entered into the system, the secretary handed the card back. “I’ll just ring for Margene to come down and give you that tour.” 

Will glanced around the room, trying his best not to pay attention to anything. He’d been isolated in his house for months, travelling out only to get the necessities, so now being out in public felt marginally agoraphobic. Then again, a dog kennel was hardly what most people would think of as public. 

His brain inventoried the room in a series of snapshots like the crime scene photos Jack used to subject him to. When the secretary coughed to gain his attention, he catalogued him in a rapid-fire database of descriptive items. Brunette, red highlights, recently dyed his hair a natural colour, brittle, split-ends on hair from too many rounds of bleach, avoid the face and eyes, blue and brown plaid button up flannel, clunky off-brand smart watch on right wrist, left handed, looking at me.   Bryant, the name flashed up at him from the bronze plated tag on the plaid shirt. He wanted to look back to the holistically non-descript waiting room but instead he forced himself to look at the bridge of the secretary’s nose. It was near enough to the eyes to fool most people. “Yes?” 

“Margene is ready now.” Bryant gestured over to a woman in her late fifties who had come in through a side door.  

She was well put together, professionally dressed with the artful style of makeup that made it look as if she wasn’t wearing any at all. Will estimated her age into the early sixties given the crows’ feet at the corner of her eyes and the thin quality to the skin over her temples. If she was nearer he was certain he’d see wrinkles going through her lips where the collagen had slowly seeped away each year.  Her charcoal grey pant suit seemed an odd choice to him if she worked with dogs all day. There wasn’t a speck of shed hair on the suit, she didn’t work directly with the dogs then.  

“Mr. Graham, welcome, welcome.” Her voice was a rich contralto with a hint of smoking in years gone by. She swept across the room with grace and poise, coming over to collect one of his hands in hers and giving a brief squeeze.  

He’d been expecting a handshake but the squeeze was oddly more personal and he took an instant dislike to it. Thankfully he wouldn’t be the one staying. What mattered was how she and her staff treated the dogs, not how well they minded his personal space. He fought to smile back at her and make it seem sincere. “Thank you.” 

Dropping his hand, she motioned for Will to follow through the door she’d just come in. Beyond the door was the inside kennels. The enclosures reminded him dimly of animal habitats at the zoo, overdone in an effort to emulate the animal’s native habitat; only where the zoo filled their spaces with rocks and shrubs and grasses, these enclosures had dog beds and couches and an odd profusion of pillows. It felt like the forced homeliness of some motels, all striving too hard to feel like home and only coming across as impersonal mass fabrications instead.  

What use would any dog have with so many pillows? 

He realised she was saying something and he’d been lost in thought.  

“Each dog is given its own enclosure unless they arrive in a group and display a desire to bed together. With yours I think we’ll put them in one of the full suites instead, so they won’t have to be separated. We pride ourselves in--,” her voice trailed off to him as his interest in her waned. 

He ran his fingers over the industrial chicken wire fencing that served as the wall to the cages, because no matter how gussied up they were, they were just fancy cages. He didn’t mind, it wasn’t about how pretty it was, just how often they had people to actually interact with the dogs. Would they get one on one time with a person daily? Would they get to play? Would their only socialisation come from one another?  

The reviews had spoken on the grand experience and the friendly help staff, but you couldn’t interview one of the dogs to ask them how they’d been treated.  

“--twice daily. And Ashley is working on her animal husbandry degree, so she’s been working three times a week with obedience classes and interactive play therapy--.” 

Interactive play therapy? Didn’t that sound fancy? 

His fingers fell away from the wire as he continued on down the hall, following her out to the grounds surrounding the kennels. There were fields and a sand lot, a few dogs already out romping by a small creek on the edge of the property. The fence enclosing the space was more reinforced chicken wire with wood behind it to make it look more attractive from the outside. All that was missing was a watch tower and rolls of barbed wire at the top of the fence to feel like a prison yard. He shook the idea away. The dogs wouldn’t feel enclosed; that was all him.  

It was nice, he had to give them that. There was nothing to fault about the appearance or layout of Kennewood Vacation Lodge.  

“--any questions?”  

“No,” he replied reflexively. He hadn’t caught almost any of what she had said and he didn’t care enough to ask her to start her spiel from the top.   

“If you'd like to take off their leashes, we can have your dogs turn out onto the fields first thing, or if you’d rather we can walk them to their shared suite.” Professional and blandly comforting, how often did she deal with owners who broke down over the thought of leaving their precious hounds behind?  

He felt as if she was handling him like an explosive, one jarring motion and he would blow apart into emotional shrapnel. It reminded him of Jack, back when he’d treated him like the finest, fragile china. He hadn’t liked it then, he didn’t like it now. “Here’s fine.” 

Fingers tightening on the leashes wrapped around his left hand, he stared up at the passing clouds for the briefest of moments as he drew together his resolve.  

He had to leave them. 

Had to. 

He knelt down and started unclipping their leashes, one by one. All seven dogs stayed in their semi-circle around him, wary eyes showing that they understood something was different today. They had been his emotional stability for so long, the silent balm of animal companionship, and now he was having to leave them behind.  

His eyes stung.  

Reaching out, he touched his forehead to theirs, one at a time, calling each dog by name before taking its collar in his hand to draw them forward. “Max. Annie. Harley.” For the three smaller dogs he lifted them up to perform the same comforting ritual. “Buster. Ellie. Zoe.” He had just set down Zoe when he felt a nose press against his shoulder, coming face to face with Winston.  

Winston, the latest addition to his pack of strays and yet arguably the most sensitive and bonded of them all. How many times had he followed him into the madness of the night, by his side on highways while his body moved without his mind? A stray that seemed more in tune with his emotions than he was.  

He wrapped his arms around Winston’s neck and pulled him in close, the variegated fur pressed against his face as he breathed deeply against him. Winston smelled warm and vaguely spicy, underneath that there was the pungent whiff of that wholly dog scent. He braced himself in the wash of smells, memorising this moment by binding it with the chains of scent. When he pulled back his eyes were red rimmed but dry. There hadn’t been any tears left in him since Hannibal’s kitchen floor.  

“Mr. Graham?” 

Margene’s voice roused him and he stood, brushing off the dirt from the knees of his jeans. “They’re all I have. Please take good care of them.” 

She exuded compassion as she bent down to scratch Max on the thin blaze down the middle of his muzzle. “Of course. We treat them like family.” 

“Treat them better than family, most families are shit.” He turned on his heel and walked away, not sure he would be strong enough to spare that one last glance back and still be able to leave them behind.  

It was kinder to leave them here.  

~~~ 

The shore was distant, clouds almost disguising the shoreline among them. Will’s hand tightened around the wire rope shroud, feet wide against the northerly ocean swell. He was really doing it. The thought didn’t want to sink in, hadn’t sunk in for the past six hours that he’d been sailing northeast away from the coast.  

Jib and main set on alternate sides of the boat, wing and wing, the spinnaker pole rigged up to the jib to keep it from deflating or flagging due to the swell. He felt the downwind conditions were an almost anticlimactic start to the trip. The winds were southwesterlies, 10 to 15 knots, nearly perfect conditions to start off with. It was almost enough to make him paranoid.  

He let go of the shroud and walked back to the cockpit, going to check on the GPS that was clamped to the wheel guard. Touching one of the buttons roused the screen and the backlight came on, making it viewable in the bright sunlight. So long as he looked out for AIS targets from other ships, he was clear of worrying about any geographical hazards until he’d made it across to Europe.  

People always worried about hitting things while they were out sailing, but he understood that it was coastal hopping that had the highest danger for hitting things. Once you put the coastline behind you and sailed out into the deep blue, there wasn’t anything for hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of miles. There were the occasional stories of people sailing into sleeping whales on the surface or colliding with another boat, but those were the exception rather than the rule.  

Twisting off the cap of his bottle of Corona, he raised it towards the eastern shore in silent salute and farewell before he took a long draught. Single handing meant he’d need to keep his wits about him, so beers would be few and far between, hard alcohol even more so. He couldn’t afford to dull his senses in case anything did go wrong. But right now, as he stood at the beginning of his journey, he felt he deserved a celebratory drink for breaking free of the marina inertia - as his father used to call it. Plenty of people said they were planning on setting sail as they sat gathered around the marina bar, but it was the rare individual who actually threw off their shore lines and raised sail.  

It helped that he wasn’t leaving anyone behind.  

He felt her before he saw her out of the corner of his eye. 

“We’re finally going to track him down.” Her pale turquoise coat seemed overkill for being the beginning of summer but the breeze was cold enough to warrant it.  

He didn’t answer her, just narrowed his eyes. She wasn’t real.  

When he looked back to where she’d been from checking the wind vane, she was gone. Like he thought, not real at all.  

~~~ 

“Do you still feel that you’re stuck standing still?” Hannibal sat across from Will, his legs crossed at the knees, one black Italian leather dress shoe bouncing in the air ever so slightly. His hands were crossed over the other knee, leaning forward as he watched Will for a reaction. 

Will’s lip curled up in more of a sneer than a smile as he took in the goldenrod suit, paler canary yellow piping making up a delicate plaid in the expensive fabric. The lilac tie and matching pocket square were in particularly poor taste in his opinion; but then he’d never understood Hannibal’s fashion sense, he’d only endured it. “Sometimes.” 

The laugh shone in Hannibal’s eyes as he took in Will’s detestation of his outfit, but his voice remained professionally detached. “Only sometimes?” 

He leaned back in his chair, legs spreading at the knees unconsciously as he waved a hand in a meaningless waffling gesture. “I’m trying to move forward, but I have sea anchors streaming out behind me, slowing me down as if I’m waiting off shore for the dawn. I can’t find a safe harbour in the night. I don’t know these waters or the perils they hide.” 

“Why do you believe the shore is not benign?” 

He gave him a withering look. “When has the shore ever been benign for me?” 

“Would you rather remain out at sea indefinitely?” Hannibal leaned further forward, shifting both feet to the floor to accommodate resting his elbows on his knees. The analogy was drawing him in, apparently giving more insight than Will had meant it to.  

Even so small an encroachment on his personal space set Will’s skin on fire. “No,” his voice was quiet, uncertain. “I have to make landfall eventually.” 

Hannibal’s hand clasped his opposite wrist.  

Will closed his eyes and rested his head back against the chair. Craning his head back, he stretched his neck over the rise of fabric. “No one can survive out there indefinitely.” 

“And what does the ocean represent to you, Will? Where are you?” 

Will opened his eyes and found himself staring up at the dark ceiling of his cabin, his watch alarm beeping incessantly. He raised his wrist and blinked against the grit in his eyes. It took longer than he’d like for his eyes to focus on the glowing numbers. Fifteen minutes: his nap was up.  

The dream was fading from his memory as conscious traded shifts with subconscious, but the final question stuck with him as he rolled from his bunk still fully clothed in his foul weather gear. 

What did the ocean represent?  

He was quite literally crossing the ocean to find Hannibal now, but he’d felt trapped in place many times before in his life. This was one of the first times he could remember feeling as if he was truly moving towards something rather than just standing still, or worse yet running away. The plan centred him but it also gave him an outlet.  

What had the ocean represented before then?  

He let the thought drift off as he headed up the companionway to check on the ship. 

By the time he was in the cockpit and looking out at the ocean’s surface illuminated by the gibbous moon, he’d forgotten the question entirely. 


	5. Chapter 5

The high-pressure system that Will had been skirting the edges of for the past week slowly died out, as the winds which had been consistently in the twenty to twenty-five knot range slackened to five to ten, the wind waves eased to nothing more than a six-foot ocean swell. It was calm and rather peaceful, if a bit slower than Will wanted. He drummed his fingers along the rough non-skid coating of the side deck from where he sat in the cock pit and he considered the ocean around him.  

It was a perfect circle of cerulean, the sky above speckled with clouds only in the ring of the horizon. Overhead it was clear and the sun would have been merciless if the air wasn’t still cool. He debated if he wanted to put up a bimini top just for the sun shade. He was still wearing enough layers that the idea seemed a bit ridiculous; the only exposed skin of his body being his ears, neck, and nose, and all those were slathered generously with sunscreen. He'd learned from an early age that it was better not to burn than to go through nights unable to sleep because of the ambient heat of sunburnt skin. Then again, it wasn't like he was sleeping much lately with his short naps between long watches. 

 Sunlight sparkled off a wavelet, temporarily blinding him before he rose his hand to shade his eyes.  

Laughter sounded from the bow. 

He knew without looking what he'd see: Abigail. She wasn't real, but as often as he reminded himself of that he couldn't banish her completely. All he could do was push her away for a time and each time she left it seemed a shorter and shorter duration. He knew why that was.  

He was lonely, plain and simple.  

Living in his cabin in the woods, on the edge of wilderness and hinterland, he'd never have thought it possible. He had relished his isolation, luxuriated in his solitude. It had been a balm from the stress of daily life. After a long week lecturing he lusted after nothing so much as the relative silence of nature, filled with all her ambient noises the human mind filtered out.  

But that was just it, wasn't it? 

He had used the cabin, the woods, the dogs even – although to a lesser extent – as a reprieve from his interactions with others. He was bombarded with socialisation. Students, co-workers, convenience store clerks, people in line at the supermarket who wanted to make small talk. It was endless.  

Then if there was a murder he got to add in Jack and his dominantly abusive personality. There were all the gruff local cops at each new murder scene who looked on him with disdain and mistrust, because he was a part of the great steamroller that was the FBI, come to take away their collar. There were the victims' family who looked at him with that most fragile of hopes, thinking that he would work some miracle for them that no one before had managed.  

People who demanded something of him with their eyes, their presence, their purposeful silence.  

By the end of the week he was little more than a wind-up monkey with his cymbals clashing into an undecipherable din, arms ready to fall off and drop his burdens to the floor.  

Wolf Trap had been his refuge.  

Nola was a refuge in a different way, but she was also a prison. Here on the endless ocean he was trapped with the demons in his brain, with Abigail who offered the tempting promise of companionship, of mutual pain, of understanding.  

Understanding had captured him once before and he refused to fall for it a second time.  

She wasn't real. 

Hannibal hadn't been real either, only another type of hallucination, one produced through lies and superb acting and his own desire to be fooled.  

She was a tie to Hannibal, a commiseration.  

But worse than all her other faults and flaws: she spoke the truth. She voiced the portions of his soul he had to keep locked away to survive alone. She championed the cause of going to find out Hannibal and ask why, even though they both already knew. She argued to forgive him. She diminished the importance of their scars and magnified the fact that Hannibal had left them alive, as if he were some benevolent god teaching them a lesson.  

He set his jaw and pressed his forefingers to his temples, rubbing slow circles.  

She wasn't real.  

She was his subconscious screaming to be heard. 

He looked and saw her. 

He didn't know when his tears had started. 

Like some bodhisattva she came to him then, her laughter died away and all that remained was the feel of her slender arms wrapping around his shaking shoulders.  

In the middle of the serene ocean he let himself grieve for what Hannibal had taken from them. Abigail had never been a person to him, he knew that now, had come to terms with it after her first death. She had been an ideal to him, a future goal. For how ardently he'd denied wanting children, she'd made him feel paternal. Uncomfortable visions of a lineage, of a family, of meaning something to another human being, had danced through his few peaceful dreams and she had taken the starring role. Only he'd never known her; like one of Jung's archetypes she was a living emblem of what he wanted. He had objectified her as surely as her own father had, turned her into something attainable rather than a person. 

He broke for the girl who had been caught between Hannibal and himself, a fiercely individual soul who had been trussed up into a different role by both of them. Hannibal had known her more, had admitted the truth of who she was, but even he had been content to use her as little more than glue in their fictional promise of family.  

She was the mortar to their bricks. 

Her arms tightened around him and hot tears slipped under the collar of his shirt. He strained to hear her words over the roar of his guilt.  

"I forgive you. I forgive you, Will. I forgive you." Those meagre words repeated until he could process them. Perhaps they would be repeated until he believed them. 

He didn't need to ask what she was forgiving him for. He might not have been the one who took her life, but then if he'd had his way, she'd never have had her own life in the first place.  

His alarm beeped and he awoke where he'd dozed off, sitting against one of the support bars of the dodger, stiff and sore. The comfort of her fragile arms was gone. His face was dry and crusted in salt that he could tell himself was from sea spray. 

~~~ 

When the calm winds persisted into the next day, Will decided that he might as well put out a trawl line. He didn't hold out much hope or care either way but it seemed a waste to not at least try.  

He had just ducked down the companionway to grab a fresh jug of water when he heard splashing. Scampering back up, he looked out and saw the tell-tale spray from a fish thrashing on the line. Hauling his ass to the transom, he pulled on a pair of gloves before he went to handle the trawl line. Depending on the size of fish and how hard it might pull against him, he could easily get rope burn. His callouses were getting better but he wasn't to the point where he'd haul on lines without a little protection.  

Gripping the line tight and putting a twist around his right forearm for good measure, he started hauling it in. He could have pulled the bitter end back enough to put a few turns around a winch and crank it in that way, but after a day and a half of nearly becalmed seas he was ready for a little physical exertion.  

Hauling in the line hand over hand, cinching up where it was twined around his arm to prevent it slipping and paying back out, he watched as the splashing slowly came closer. Occasionally he'd have to plant his feet and just hold on when the fish would take off at an angle through the water, suddenly shooting out to port or starboard or try to submerge and rip the hook from its mouth. Jaws clenched tight and a madcap grin spreading ever wider on his grizzled face, he fought the fish for the sheer exhilarating thrill of it.  

He was alive, every nerve thrumming with it.  

Fishing had always been his passion and while this wasn't fly fishing it was no different at its base elements. It was still a test of wits, of wills, of determination, with the fish. He had set out bait and the fish had taken it, and now he had to be careful in how he reeled in his quarry so it wasn't able to break the line and go free.  

Sweat broke out across his brow and down his back as he steadily pulled the fish in, catching nothing more than teasing glimpses of a dorsal fin breaking the water in a spray of foam that obscured any colours. He wet his lips before rolling the lower under his teeth in concentration. His forearms complained of holding the thin line so tight for so long, so he threw another wrap around to take some of the strain away from his fingers.  

Hand over hand, each foot a fight, he watched that splashing come ever nearer until it was just off the transom. With one last great pull he drew his prize from the water and onto his boat. Liquid silver scales flashed as it thrashed itself about wildly, most of the fight gone from it but as if it sensed its impending death it gave a renewed struggle. It might have gotten back over the rail and into the water if he hadn't tightened up his grip on the line and dragged it into the cockpit.  

The height of its thrashing raised it several feet off the deck, but not enough to get out of the cockpit. Fish eyes wide as they always were, those saucers stared out at the alien world above the surface and it continued to beat itself wildly about.  

Tying the line to a cleat, just in case, Will ducked downstairs to grab rubbing alcohol. He stomped on the fish and managed to pin it just long enough to pour the alcohol into its gills, which would help speed its death. After a few moments the thrashing slowed and then then stilled completely. He gave it a little while longer just to be sure before he capped the plastic bottle and set it aside.  

He went inside and threw on his foul weather bibs, to keep from staining his pants with the coming blood. Grabbing a fillet and skinning knife, he made his way back out to his awaiting fish. He was more accustomed to identifying freshwater fish, but the bright yellow fins which gave the fish its name were well-known enough even for him to know. A good-sized yellowfin tuna, maybe forty pounds or so.   

Placing the tuna on a board balanced over his knees, he took hold of the gills and pulled them back, then placed the tip of his knife just behind them. At a forty-five-degree angle he jammed it down into the heart. Blood blossomed up and then poured as he pulled the knife back out. The feebly pumping heart thrust blood into the air, crimson and vibrant over everything.  

Warm blood coated his hands first in great gouts and then in a lessening stream, and something inside him scented the air and raised its great head. He felt the tines of antlers scrape over the inside of his abdominal wall, catching on his ribs like xylophone bars. Shuddering like a horse coming in from a long run, he let the knife go and pressed his hand over the wound, watching the blood burble up between his fingers. Warm and carmine and somehow perfect.  

He watched as the blood slacken to a trickle, rubbing his hands against a chill that came from inside him. Raising his hands to his face, he placed them flat against his cheeks and breathed in the familiar and subtly different aroma of tuna blood. It sated a thirst he hadn't consciously recognised. Eyes closed, he let the heat from the blood trickle down through his stubble and hook under his chin, a few drips making the mad dash down his neck and soaking into the sweat stained collar of his undershirt.  

He luxuriated in the blood and he didn't let his mind think about it, simply relaxed into the pleasure of being bathed in the warmth of something that had been alive and now wasn't.  

When the shrill warning klaxon inside his brain finally registered, he pulled his hands from his face and stared at them in manufactured horror, his morality reeling from what he'd just sought solace in.  

The beast inside him nudged against his heart, which gave a startled beat. The beast wanted one more thing. The killers long trapped inside the depths of his mind agreed.  

Ignoring the soundless scream of his sane mind, he licked the blood in one long line from the heel of his palm to the tips of his fingers, letting the taste roll over him. The pressure of the tines eased and he found he could breathe easier again.  

He picked up his fillet knife and set out to butcher the fish like he had done hundreds of times before in his quiet kitchen in the woods.  

What would Hannibal think if he saw him now, covered in blood and carefully cutting his own steaks? Would it titillate him to see the track of his tongue through the blood? Or would it only leave him burning to see it recreated with a human victim? 

It was that thought that finally roused Will from his stupor, his hand clenching painfully on the knife's hilt. There was a darkness inside of him and it wasn't just Abigail who wanted to forgive Hannibal, but his conscious mind wasn't ready to admit that. So he reminded himself this was a fish, this was different than slaughtering and butchering a person with Hannibal; and he didn't let the beast out, even when he felt the tines pressing against his ribs, demanding to let himself free. 

For today his morality stood sentinel on the walls of the fort inside the bone arena of his skull. 


	6. Chapter 6

Will looked out the rain streaked windows of the dodger, huddling under it to keep out of the worst of the rain. Visibility was horrendous, he’d bet it wasn’t more than 400 yards. Unlike a localised squall, he’d seen the tropical storm form for days on the grib files and weather faxes before it finally blew in. The rains had started last night. Or was it still last night? He looked down at his watch, the only arbitrary governing of time in this twilight world of the storm.  

A droplet fell from the edge of the dodger and hit him on the nose, the sudden cold surprising him enough to let out a low oath. Scrubbing his hand over his nose, he glared up and tried to settle his nerves. He had the radar and AIS up and running, scanning for other boats, but he didn’t like such limited visibility. It wasn’t likely anyone else would be in this same desolate patch of ocean, but it was the not knowing for certain that was driving him crazy.  

Damn, he just wanted to catch some shut eye; but that was an even worse idea than usual. He could get away with slightly longer naps when the sun was up and the weather was clear, sometimes letting himself luxuriate up to half an hour in his bunk. His last nap felt like a distant memory.  

The world outside the boat felt like a long-forgotten dream.  

He flipped up the hood of his foul weather coat and poked out from the dodger, checking on the shape of the sails. At least the storm meant there was better winds again. It was difficult to say whether he would trade visibility for speed of transit though.  

Something splashed off to the starboard and he swirled around, eyes trained on the pale ardent gloom. Waves moved like ghosts through the rain saturated air, slapping against the hull with a rhythmic beat. The splash sounded again and he went over to the railing, holding onto the top lifeline as he crouched low, not wanting to sacrifice his balance for curiosity.  

Then the unmistakable sound of air expelled through a blow hole came.  

He couldn’t see it, but he heard more splashes, more blasts of breath, and he knew he had to be converging with a pod of marine mammals of some kind. Spray hit his face from a wave and he frowned as it dripped off his nose and into his beard. It would just add to the layer of salt that was already encrusted there.  

Finally, he saw a dorsal fin and a rounded head crested the water. He watched an Atlantic white-sided dolphin jump flawlessly through the waves, threading each wave crest like a dancer. Another joined and the two jumped in synchrony, flukes disappearing beneath the waves, leaving only the smallest tunnel of bubbles to show their passing.  

He rested back on his haunches, crouching there with both hands holding the railing, eyes trained out on the dolphins as more of the pod joined round his boat. They played in the bow wake of Nola, perfectly unperturbed by the storm.  

A sense of wonder and calm filled him as he watched them dance through the water, the lightest flick of their tails all it took to sheer off in another direction like rockets beneath the waves. He caught sight of a smaller dolphin and knew instinctively that it was a baby by the way it stayed practically glued to its mother’s side. One of her pectorals was always touching it, tapping when she was going to change direction.  

His breath came out in white fog, his nose reddening from the cold, but still he stayed crouched there, desperate to watch the display of life outside his own head.  

One of the dolphins flipped out of the water and landed with a heavy splash, the energy of the entire pod ramping up as they started to play together. It brought a quiet smile to his face as he saw their exuberance. In a way it reminded him of his dogs, and that resemblance gave his smile just the smallest taint of sorrow. It settled into his gaze, an indistinguishable pit of darkness in the centre of his pupils.  

How were they doing?  

Did they miss him? 

Was the kennel treating them well? 

His knuckles whitened as his grip tightened on the thin metal rope of the life line. He’d made the right choice in leaving them behind, but just because it was the right choice didn’t mean it was easy.  

It seemed like he’d made too many ‘right’ choices in his life, each one a little harder to justify to himself. The questions of morality were getting foggier every year, quandaries that no longer presented an answer, let alone an easy one.  

But leaving the dogs, that one he knew had been right. Confining them to the boat with him in conditions like this would have been tantamount to torture. That didn’t make it any easier to live with though, or to live without them.  

The sounds of the pod had slowly drifted away, and when Will pulled himself from his thoughts he found that he was alone in the ocean again.  

He stood against the protestation of his joints, the cold having settled into his knees with particular savagery. His stomach gave a twinge as he straightened back up. “Fuck.” He hardly recognised the sound of his own voice, so he said it again just to hear it. “Fuck.” Was it his imagination or was there a rasp to his voice that hadn‘t been there before? No, there couldn’t be, he’d only been out a week and a half, nowhere near long enough to have any adverse effects on his voice from silence.   

There was nothing wrong. He just needed sleep.  

Giving the false horizon of the storm one last look, he went down the companionway and stood dripping in his galley. He needed to get warm and eat something. Heating things up under way wasn’t often a wise plan but he needed to get the chill out of his bones, and using alcohol to do it would be an even worse plan.  

As he started to struggle out of his jacket, he felt warm, small hands wrap over the end of his sleeve and tug.  

“Let me help you.” 

He whirled around and saw Abigail looking surprised at him, her eyes wide at how swiftly he’d rounded.  

“What?” she asked, a saccharine smile on her lips.  

“Wha... what?” He echoed her confusion. 

“Okay, I get it, you’re the captain and you have all the responsibility resting on your shoulders, but if you’re getting confused about why I’m helping you take off your jacket then you need to take another nap.” There was a biting humour to her words as she tugged on his sleeve again.  

Something was wrong with the picture but, for the life of him, he didn’t know what. So he relented and allowed her to help him shrug off his jacket.  

She hung the dripping yellow monstrosity from a hook in the head, the slatted floor board meaning the coat would drip right into the bilge. “Now promise me you’ll take a cat nap, at least, while I warm up some chowder. Alright? I can keep an eye on the radar while I warm your dinner.” 

An instinct inside him tried to remind him why that wasn’t a good idea, something about how he couldn’t trust Abigail to watch the boat for him, but he still couldn’t remember why that was such a problem. She was an incredibly responsible girl. Hobbs had forced her to grow up too fast, too soon. She knew the dangers of being inattentive. He could trust the boat to her watchful eye. 

Couldn’t he? 

He dragged a hand over his face, felt the coarse hair of his beard catch on his callouses. When was the last time he’d shaved? He went to the head to catch sight of his reflection. He looked atrocious. There were dark bruises and bags under his eyes; his face would have looked gaunt if it weren’t for the bushy beginnings of a real beard. He looked like a lumberjack in his plaid flannel overcoat.  

Running his tongue over the front of his teeth, he felt scum there. How long had it been since he’d brushed his teeth? Surely he could at least fit that in before he took a cat nap.  

Leaning against the door jamb of the head, he brushed his teeth and watched Abigail start hunting through the ship’s stores to find chowder.   

She looked over her shoulder at him with a disapproving glance, not liking to be stared at.  

He didn’t say anything, just continued brushing his teeth.  

“Hannibal was definitely a better conversationalist than you. But then, you’re not as driven to fill the silence as he was.”  

Mention of Hannibal surprised him and it showed, his body language tensing before he could marshal his self-control. He finished up and spat out into the sink, rinsing off his brush. Swiping a hand over his mouth, he thought it over. “I’m more used to silence than he is, I think.” 

“Because he’s a socialite?” 

That might have been a part of it, but it wasn’t the whole reason. He’d never really given it much thought, he’d always considered them both fairly adept at surviving silences. However, over time silence could become deafening, especially when the ghosts of past regrets came to rattle their chains.  

“Hello? Earth to Will?” Abigail waved her hand in front of his face. “Anybody home?” 

“Sorry.” 

“I think you get lost up there more often than he does.” She tapped his temple. 

That was definitely true. Hannibal had his mind palace, kept it meticulously cultivated so that each and every memory had its exact place. He could lose himself in there if he wanted, but he never got lost unintentionally.  

His own mind was all too prone to wandering.  

Will sat down on the settee and arranged a few pillows before stretching out. He turned his gaze to her and watched as she found the can opener and poured the contents into a pot. “Did you two talk a lot?” 

“When?”  

“After he faked your death?” His gaze flitted over her missing ear, hidden by the fall of her hair. She’d let Hannibal maim her to keep her safe. Would he have trusted him to that extent?  

“Ah.” She secured sea rails to the stove top and held the pot in place over the burner before lighting the stove. If a wave came she didn’t want the pot scalding her. “He was the only person I  _could_  talk to, so yes, I guess so.” 

He tried to imagine that, all those months with only Hannibal for occasional company. “I’m sorry.” He watched her shoulders stiffen.  

“The whole point was for everyone to think I was dead. You don’t have to apologise. We both needed you to be fooled right along with everyone else.” 

“No, I’m not apologising for that. I’m sorry that I hadn’t decided to go with him, with you, earlier.” How much pain could he have spared them all if he’d just decided earlier? Would knowing she had been alive made any difference? Was the promise of them being a family again enough? Could they ever be a family? Did he even want to be a family? With her? With him? 

They were weighty questions and he found he had no answers. 

Somewhere along the way he drifted off, his mind lost in questions that had no easy answers. 

\--- 

“You often dream of my office.” 

Will found himself leaning against the ladder in Hannibal’s office, one foot resting on a step and his knee bent. He drummed his fingers against the wood. “Do I? I don’t remember most of them.” 

“You do.” Hannibal was seated on the front of his desk, his jacket unbuttoned and his waistcoat mildly askew. His hands were folded in his lap, fingers laced as if holding something precious cupped inside them.  

Some aspect of his appearance seemed unkempt but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Were his bangs usually hanging in his face like that? 

Will pushed off the ladder and stalked closer, a predatory instinct screaming at him not to leave his throat exposed. He hated Hannibal in that moment, looking every bit as in control as he didn’t feel. “Do I often dream of you in your office?” 

A laugh, rich and honeyed. “What would be the point of dreaming of the room without me here to torment you? You’ve never been fascinated by these four walls,” he gestured to their ornate surroundings, books and statues, fine art and preserved moths, “but by the conversations we had inside them. You bared your soul to me here, it is not surprising that it should serve as a reoccurring backdrop to your dreams.” 

“I bared my soul and you tore it to shreds,” he snarled in response, stopping an arm's length away from Hannibal before he could do something he’d regret. His fingers tightened into fists at his side but he didn’t know whether he wanted to punch Hannibal or grab him by the collar. So often he was conflicted in his reactions to the man.  

“Was it your soul I tore to shreds?” 

“No, my mind.” 

“Was that all?” 

“My pride? My self-respect? My trust?” 

Hannibal’s quizzical gaze mocked him.  

“What answer are you fishing for?” 

He sighed, “So much anger.” 

Mentioning the anger only caused more of it to flare up inside Will. He felt his cheeks grow hot from it, felt it warm him from the tips of his toes to the hackles of his heart. “You took everything from me.” 

“Did I? I like to think I left you everything you needed to get back on your feet. I left you your life, I left you Abigail. Wasn’t I the one who was left alone, forced to flee my home because you had chosen to betray me?” 

Anger swirled behind his eyes, red tinting his vision at the edges. He felt his nails bite into the meat of his palms, blood welling up. A pressure was building inside of him, wanting to lash out and defend itself. He wanted to cry out that he hadn’t betrayed Hannibal, but that was too muddied of waters for him to tread truthfully. Hadn’t he betrayed him? Even if he hadn’t meant to, isn’t that exactly what happened before it all came crashing down?  

“Is that how you justify it?” 

“Does God justify his actions?” 

“You’re not God!” he bit back, only his voice sounded far too fragile for his liking. The anger was there but it couldn’t keep the tremor out. When had he begun shaking?  

Hannibal reached forward and took one of his hands between both of his own, slowly uncurling the fingers that had nearly locked into position. His thumb swept over the shallow pool of blood coating the crescent cuts. He stared at the blood there for a long moment before he brought his thumb to his lips and sucked the blood away.  

Will felt a thrill of revulsion but found he couldn’t look away. Or at least he hoped that was revulsion. It was something overpowering either way. 

Catching his gaze and holding it through sheer force of will, Hannibal took Will’s unclenched hand again. Raising the hand to his mouth, he licked the wounds slowly, thoroughly.  

Mind scrambling for purchase, he tried to equate the action to anything he could comfortably understand. The dogs licked his hands plenty of times. Yes. If he could just sublimate this moment into a memory of his dogs everything would be fine. However, none of his dogs had ever looked at him with such naked emotion in their eyes as they licked at his wounds. There was devotion there, but more surprisingly there was gratitude.  

What did Hannibal have to feel gratitude towards him for? 

A shot of something hot and painful exploded in his gut and for a moment he feared Hannibal had taken his distraction to plunge another knife into him, but as he looked down he saw it wasn’t pain at all that Hannibal had inflicted.  

It was pleasure.  

The tongue pressed harder into a cut, a silent command Will had to obey, and he focused back to Hannibal and the private moment they were both trapped inside of. He watched, transfixed, as the man laved at his minor wounds. Was it his breath that was beginning to speed or Hannibal’s? Was that sound of contentment from him or the doctor? 

“Give me your other hand, Will.” 

There was no thought in his mind as he gave his other fist to Hannibal, watching as the whole process was repeated. Hannibal had never licked his wounds in this office. He’d cleaned them before, dispassionately placed his raw knuckles under water and slowly washed away the blood. Hannibal had never licked him before. 

Then again, he’d never stood there slowly growing hard, watching Hannibal lick his blood away. 

“You said this was a dream,” he managed to get out, voice too low and husky for his liking. He wasn’t comfortable with any of this. He was sinking fast and he needed a life line, anything would do. 

“Yes,” Hannibal idly replied, tongue swirling over the wound and a callous, dipping between his middle and ring finger to chase a drop of blood on the webbing of skin there.  

A shudder passed through him. “If this is a dream, then I can wake up whenever I want. Right?” 

Dark mirth shown in Hannibal’s eyes that seemed all the more maroon than usual as his pupils expanded. “If you’d like. Do you want to wake up, Will?” The way he said his name felt like a promise or an invitation.  

He didn’t want Hannibal saying his name like that. “I think I need to wake up.” 

“But you don’t want to?” 

He wanted to take his hand back before Hannibal’s lips could close around his middle finger to begin sucking it into his mouth, but it wouldn’t respond as it stayed cradled in the man’s embrace. “No.”  

“There’s your answer then.” 

Will felt himself pressed too tight in his jeans and the tone of Hannibal’s voice, so full of unadulterated desire, made him ache.  

He’d never felt attracted to Hannibal. Had he? It didn’t help that he knew this was a dream, it only put another nail in his coffin.  

Hannibal’s lips slipped over his middle finger and began pressing forward in a slow pilgrimage, his tongue promising just how adept it could be on other pieces of his anatomy. It drew a moan from Will that was almost obscene enough to rouse him from his emotional paralysis. Instead Hannibal seemed to take the moan as encouragement because his cheeks hollowed out and he began sucking. 

His eyelids slipped closed rather than watch the way Hannibal still stared up at him like he was precious as he offered this to him. He wanted to pretend that he didn’t understand the gesture for what it was but he couldn’t. Even knowing this was a dream didn’t help. 

He could have Hannibal here. Wholly and completely and-- 

Teeth grazed his knuckle and his eyes flashed open, feeling fingers delicately taking hold of the zipper pull on his fly.  

Hannibal smirked around Will’s finger, saliva shining as he pulled back enough to speak. His fingers gave a light tug and the zipper moved down a few teeth. “Please.” 

The request threw him. Why would Hannibal ask now? Wasn’t he the one holding all the cards? Hadn’t he always been the one manipulating everything? He shook his head mutely, not trusting his voice to not give him away. He wanted it, so badly, but he couldn’t admit that. 

“Do you want me to stop?” 

His head shook again and he cursed himself. 

“Oh Will,” voice thick with need and an echo of love, Hannibal’s eyes were pools too deep to decipher. What was swimming in those waters? “Let me make you feel good, doctor’s orders.” 

And the fact that  _that_  got a twitch out of his aching groin made him entirely too self-aware.  

But what could it hurt? He knew this was a dream, and just by knowing couldn’t he wake up if he truly wanted to? 

Hannibal could see the moment he’d decided but he waited for assent before he resumed pulling down the zipper and popped his button with a practiced ease. He reached through Will’s boxers and freed him, taking him into his warm hand and wrapping his fingers around almost reverently.  

Will had to put his hands on Hannibal’s shoulders to steady himself, gaze locked to that low point of contact between them. Nothing else mattered in that moment, not his earlier misgivings or the fact that this was a dream. Nothing. 

Hannibal’s next words were trampled by the beeping of his alarm and Will shot up from the settee, looking about wildly as the dream broke around him. There was an emptied bowl of chowder on the table and a mild burn on the base knuckle of his middle finger.  

There was also an uncomfortable pressure in his pants that he really, really didn’t want to think about. 


	7. Chapter 7

“Batten down the hatches!” Will called out from the cockpit, hoping his words would reach Abigail inside the cabin.  

Her head popped up, hair wind strewn recklessly around her face from her earlier foray above deck to help him get the main sheet under control. “What does that even mean? Pretend for one second that I don’t have any boating experience, Will.” 

“Batten means to fasten, in this case. You need to close the hatches, the windows, and pull the levers in to fasten them closed. That way they seal against any water getting into the boat.” Even with the storm hitting full force, he was still a teacher at heart and he couldn’t help himself but over-explain things. She’d asked for his knowledge, which he was only too happy to impart.  

He’d never admit it but this time together with her on their hunt for Hannibal was special. She’d always been a concept to him before. She’d been closer to Hannibal, had shared more secrets and understandings with him.  

But with Will? 

They’d never gotten a chance to know one another, doomed from the start to be just the victim and the man who shot her father. He’d never blamed her for that. It still hurt, but he’d never blamed her. Lounds had seen through him almost immediately, had even tried to offer him the chance for a better relationship with her, but that wasn’t a deal he could make.  

The sound of the gusting wind brought him back to the present, seeing Abigail had already gone back down to do as he’d asked. Good for her. There was still a chip on her shoulder some days but it was less and less apparent as time passed. Living on the boat together was giving them both a shared perspective to relate.  

The fact that Hannibal was once again the impetus that brought them together grated on his nerves. It seemed he’d never be free of Hannibal’s cursed influence.  

Which reminded him of the dream. 

Fuck.  

It was easier to ignore things when he had things to do, so Will set himself to work.  

The boat was heeling hard to port, the wind gusts steadily having gotten stronger over the past hour now. He was going to need to either reef the main in further or drop it altogether. It was already down to the second reef point, but he had a third for when things were severe enough. He didn’t have an anemometer handy so he couldn’t say just how strong the winds were, but just by looking at the state of the white caps around the boat and the horizontal spray he knew it was well above 40 kts.  

“Abigail,” he yelled out.  

Her head popped back up again, arm brushing her hair back from her face as wind that whipped around the dodger toyed with her. “Yeah?” she yelled back.  

“We’re going to have to drop the main.” 

“Okay.” The usual sardonic air about her was gone and what remained was all business.  

Had she gotten like this when her father would send her off to befriend their next victim? 

No, not the time or place to think about that. There were no potential victims here for either of them, just the mounting storm. 

“I’m going to have to go up to the mast and let loose the main halyard. The main will probably hang up from thrashing in the wind, so I’ll have to stay up there and haul it down by hand if it does.” 

“What do I do?” 

“I’ll have you come here and keep us on course. The autopilot is engaged, so you shouldn’t need to do much, just hold on and make sure it doesn’t throw a fault while I’m up forward.” 

She nodded, grabbing a hair tie from her pocket and swiftly pulling her hair back into a messy bun. Grabbing a pair of gloves from one of the side pockets of the dodger, she slipped them on before joining Will beside the wheel. “Alright, now what?” 

“Just hold on here and keep an eye on the autopilot there. Yell if anything goes wrong.” He started for the side of the cockpit.  

“Shouldn’t you be wearing a life vest or harness or something?” 

“No need, I can tie myself to the mast if the waves start throwing us around too much.” 

It sounded like she might have scoffed at him but that was lost to the wind so he chose to ignore it. He’d never been the biggest fan of safety measures.  

Making his way forward, he did make sure to keep his weight low and one hand trailing along the life line to keep him steadied. Last thing they needed was for him to go overboard in these conditions. Abigail was learning how to handle Nola but he wasn’t confident that she would know how to drop sail, start the motor, and come back around to find him under the stress of the storm. Best to just not fall overboard in the first place.  

Maybe a harness wouldn’t be such a bad idea next time. Right now though there wasn’t time, and he didn’t know where in the lazarette one would be off the top of his head.  

A sudden wave slammed him in against the centreline of the boat, his hands just barely managing to keep him from hitting his head on the deck. Continuing on all fours, he half crawled over to the mast and grabbed a winch handle from the pocket above the mast boot. Snapping the handle into the winch, he got himself roughly into position before making good on his idea to lash himself to the mast.  

He grabbed the tail end of the Cummingham, which he wasn’t using, and flung it around the mast. Catching the end, he tied a few half hitches around the line, testing it with his weight by leaning back against the dip following a wave. Perfect. 

Another wave slapped over the boat and a wall of water slammed into the heavy plastic of his foul weather gear, keeping him dry even as the weight of the water felt just shy of bruising. His stomach hit the winch hard and winded him, his abdomen aching as he pushed himself off it enough to start cranking. He needed to haul the main up just enough to get slack on the tail end of the line so he could undo the hitches over the cleat that were holding it fast.  

His wet gloves slipped on the line a few times before he managed to relieve the pressure and tug the knots free. Letting off a turn of the line, he started to lower the sail. 

Only there was a problem. He’d forgotten to tell Abigail to turn the boat up into the wind so he could drop the sail without it beating itself, and him, to pieces. And she probably didn’t know how to disengage the autopilot either. Damn. 

Hooking the line back over the cleat, he shimmied closer to the mast and pushed the loop he’d tied around himself down over his hips. The winds chose just then to gust particularly violently and send him stumbling right into the rigging, which was likely the only thing that kept him from going over the side. Still he could feel his shoulder and doubted he’d get away without a bruise come morning.  

Low to the deck again, he hurried back to the cockpit and showed Abigail how to bring the autopilot up into the wind, the sails both flogging loudly enough to make conversation all but impossible.  

She frowned at him, which he took to mean she’d seen his close calls and was disapproving of his cavalier approach to boat handling safety. He took her concern under advisement but ignored it as he went back to the task at hand.  

He needed to get that sail down.  

There were partial battens in the main and those could be beaten right out of the sail if he let it flog for too long. He’d seen it happen before, sun-worn thread giving way in a storm and the batten flying out from the sheath in the sail.  

Almost as if the thought was a premonition, he heard a rip and looked up just in time to see the second batten flung from the sail. He had only moments to scream Abigail’s name as he watched the trajectory and knew it would come down near her.  

Thankfully she was light on her feet and managed to see it coming, dodging painfully to the side railing before the thick fibreglass could hit her. She gave him a thumbs up to show she was alright as she gingerly got back up.  

He gave a sigh of relief as he returned to the mast and pulled the loop back around his waist again. With the boat up into the wind he was able to get the main to mostly run free as he loosened the halyard and let it go. It was only when the sail was most of the way down that the thicker head of the mainsail fought him. He had to go up on his toes to grab the sail and haul it down hand over hand.  

The wind grabbed a thick fold of the sail and started flogging it again, although far less effective now that it was lying against the boom. He’d need to get sail ties on it to keep it safe during the storm. Should have thought of that earlier.  

Rushing back to the cockpit to grab them from another pocket on the dodger, he did a quick visual check to make sure that Abigail really was alright. She seemed steady enough, which was no small feat given the sea state. He could look her over later to assure himself she was fine, but for now the boat came first.  

His fingers felt thick and clumsy from the cold, even through the heavy gloves. He fumbled with the first tie a few times before he managed to toss the end over the boom and sail, catch it underneath, and cinch it tight to tie it off with a few half hitches. Repeating the process two more times while trying to hold onto a moving boom in the middle of a storm had him cursing as colourfully as any sailor, but he managed it.  

A loud, hollow, metallic banging drew his attention to the mast. He watched as the main halyard was whipped this way and that by the wind. He could tighten it up some and tie it down, but given this much wind that might not be enough. Still it was the best solution he had for the time being.  

However, something always went wrong. Murphy’s Law worked overtime on boats.  

A tremendous crack split the air, audible even over the howling of the wind, and a blur out of the corner of his gaze was all the warning Will had before the block and tackle hit him square across his temple and everything went dark.  

\--- 

“I’ll admit that a safety harness wouldn’t have stopped him from getting hit in the head,” Abigail muttered as she went around the deck of the boat, picking up flying fish and tossing them back into the water. It seemed the storm had eased some in the time that Will had been unconscious.  

She picked up one fish and frowned at its little face, imitating its mouth gasping for air, “You’re lucky I’m nice to animals, Mr. Fishie.” Lobbing the fish back into the ocean, she grinned when it took off swimming.  

Will rolled over and groaned, surprised to find himself in the cockpit. His arm brushed against the right side of his face and pain erupted. “Fuck!” 

“Good afternoon to you too,” she called out. 

“Too loud.” 

“Oh, sorry.” Circling back around the boat, she sat on the opposite side of the cockpit and looked at him. “You’ve got a nasty black eye and a pretty impressive goose egg going on there.” She gestured vaguely to her own face to indicate his right temple.  

“What happened?” 

“The wind caught hold of one end of the preventer, which I guess I didn’t secure like you’d asked me to, and it clocked you in the head.” She had the decency to look properly chagrined about her role in the incident.  

He made the mistake of nodding the world swam maddeningly around him. “Fuck.” This time the curse was little better than a whimper. 

“I put ice on it earlier but it really hasn’t helped much.” 

At least she’d tried.  

“Help me sit up.” 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” 

“No, but help me do it anyway.” 

With a look of dubious faith, she came over and helped him ease up into a sitting position, resting his back against a leg of the dodger to keep upright. “You look like shit.” 

“Oh gee, thanks.” 

For a moment it looked like she was tempted to poke at his face, her finger poised in the air between them, but then her eyes sparkled and she put her hand down. “Just kidding.” 

“About looking like shit or about how you were just about to make it worse?” 

“Um, dealer’s choice?” 

Will groaned and fought down a wave of nausea. Damn, if he had a concussion they could both be in trouble. “Can you get me a flashlight?” 

She made a sarcastic remark under her breath before pointing to his jacket pocket.  

He fished around the pocket and handed the small LED flashlight to her. “Shine it in my eyes and tell me if my pupils react.” 

The light was blinding and he fought another round of nausea. 

“I think you’re okay? Your pupils constricted.” 

Small blessings. She was no doctor, but at least she was competent enough to help when he asked her to. The fact that she was the reason he was injured didn’t factor into his thoughts. Blame was a useless triviality he couldn’t indulge in.  

“I should probably keep awake for the next few watches just to make sure I’m alright. What I wouldn’t give for one of those NFL concussion specialists to give me a once over.” 

Abigail snickered. “Oh really? Isn’t there another doctor you’d rather give you that once over?” 

If he hadn’t just been clocked over the head he might have put two and two together and saved himself some embarrassment. “What?” 

“You moaned Hannibal’s name in your sleep last night, after I made you the chowder, and it was pretty easy to see by your pants the type of dream it was. I figured you could use the privacy, so I went up on deck to take my shift on watch.” 

If blood wasn’t already pooling in his face from the bruise, he might have had enough left over to blush. Shit. He really didn’t need Abigail thinking... well whatever she was thinking. “It wasn’t like that.” 

“It wasn’t like you were moaning his name and had a tent in your pants?” 

He glared at her, which was rendered impotent by the droop in his swollen right eye.  

“It wasn’t like you were enjoying yourself mighty well with his name on your lips? Hmmm?” 

If looks could kill, she should have vaporised on the spot.  

“So tell me, was he good? I mean, after what Lounds wrote I always thought you two were already a couple, but Hannibal eventually told me you weren’t actually together. Are you chasing him down to tell him you made the wrong decision and that you want to mix business and pleasure this time around?”  

Her rapid-fire barrage of questions was overwhelming, especially given the potential concussion.  

“Abigail, stop.” The corners of his lips threatened to twist up into an incomprehensible smile. “Just stop and give me a second. I’m still processing the fact that you caught me in one compromising situation, I’m not ready to think about you asking Hannibal if we were fucking.” 

Her eyes widened. “Were you? I had just asked if you were a couple. I’d never have thought you’d be so emotionless as to keep a relationship out of it!” 

“What? No! We weren’t together or having sex or anything.” 

“But you wanted to?” 

“No. Dammit, slow down a second. I’m not firing on all cylinders here.”  

She pantomimed zipping her lips shut and throwing away the key. 

“I never even thought about Hannibal in... that way.”  

It was clear she wanted to interrupt and ask more questions but she stayed silent.  

He sighed and gingerly felt at the side of his face and the considerable bump over his temple. “He was my friend, then he betrayed me, and we were enemies for a long time. Jack wanted me to help catch him, so I went back to therapy to lure him in.”  

The problem was that somewhere along the way the facade became real and he’d grown to enjoy Hannibal’s company again.  

“Anyway, we were never together. It was a dream, nothing more. Haven’t you ever had a weird sex dream with someone you know?” It was a last-ditch effort to convince her it hadn’t been as serious as it was. 

“Not with fucking Hannibal Lecter,” she finally burst out. “I mean, he’s practically my surrogate father. That would just be.... ew.”  

A sharp pain hitched in Will’s chest. Hannibal had so easily taken the place in Abigail’s life that he’d wanted. With the ease that he did everything, Hannibal had ingratiated himself to Abigail from the very beginning.  

He wanted to know if he was like a father to her as well. 

He couldn’t bring himself to ask.  

“Exactly.” If there was moisture in his eyes he could blame it on probing the bruising to guess at the damage. “Ew.” 

“First off, you really need to learn to lie better.” 

He blinked. 

“And secondly, not the first time I’ve heard you moaning his name in your sleep.” 

That threw him for a loop and she saw it. 

“You didn’t remember the others?” 

They stared at each other until both of them were mildly uncomfortable. Somehow Abigail seemed like the adult giving The Talk to Will for the first time.  _Sometimes your body is going to react even when you’re asleep. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong, or even that you don’t have control, it’s just a natural part of life._  

“Will, you’ve been saying his name in your sleep almost this entire trip. It’s not always moans, but yeah, you’re kind of fixated. I mean, I get it, we’re going to track him down, but I never thought you didn’t realise just how fixated you are on him. Are you always this deep in denial about things?” 

He blanched. 

“Oh, come on! You’re kidding me right now. You’re not telling me that you never... Wow. Wow.” 

“What?” It was difficult for him not to snap. 

“We’re crossing an entire ocean to find him. What was your thought about that?” 

He paused long enough to consider his words carefully. “I wanted closure.” 

“And?” 

“And what?” 

“You couldn’t have gotten closure by calling up Interpol and telling them how to catch him? You don’t even know where he is, or  _if_  he’s even in Europe.” 

“Well it’s the most likely place for him--” 

“Will! Listen to me for a second and answer me honestly. What are you planning on doing when you find him? And don’t tell me that you don‘t know.” 

“I don’t.” 

Her eyes narrowed. 

“I figured I’d know once I saw him, just like I knew when I heard his voice that I had to warn him to leave.” 

“Yeah, and we both know how well that turned out. You need a game plan here, Will, a strategy.” 

“Can we plan it when I‘m not suffering from a possible concussion?” 

“Will you plan it when you’re not suffering from a possible concussion?” 

He had to smile at that. She was getting to know him far too well. “I will, promise. Just not today.” 

All the teasing about Hannibal and him aside, he was glad that this trip was bringing him closer to Abigail. At least some good could come out of it, no matter what happened once he found Hannibal.  


	8. Chapter 8

Will’s right temple throbbed. It had been throbbing consistently for the past two days, the black eye that Abigail had originally teased him about turning into a discolouration of nearly half of his face. Blood had pooled under his eye, in his temple, along the underside of his cheekbone. He looked ghastly, he felt worse, but at least his right eye was no longer swollen shut. Holding ice and cold beers to the side of his face had helped calm the swelling a bit, and the beer helped some with the pain after it had warmed too much. 

He gingerly ran a hand through his hair and looked out over the ocean. The storm had passed them by late last night and the return of blue skies and puffy white clouds was an unexpected balm to his spirits. He hadn’t thought that the gloom of constant rain had gotten to him that badly.

There were other things however that he knew had gotten to him, no matter how hard he tried not to think about them. 

Ever since his talk with Abigail, he’d been struggling not to think about Hannibal or the fact that he was apparently dreaming about him often. Of course, not thinking about something was an almost impossible task, especially for a mind such as his. Whenever he managed to get his mind back on whatever he was doing on the boat, his thoughts would slip away from his control after a few minutes and wander back into the dark recesses of his mind where the memory of Hannibal dwelled. 

It felt hopelessly impossible not to think about him; but thinking about him meant opening a can of worms he felt ill equipped to handle. How could he deal with the fact that he’d been dreaming of him – and more importantly moaning his name – for weeks now without remembering it? How was he supposed to handle the fact that the last dream about him he could remember had ended with him receiving a hand job from him? 

It seemed easier to not think about it, to ensconce himself safely away from the harrowing thoughts in the drudgery of life at sea, but he already knew that couldn’t stop the mental exploration, it could only delay it a while.

So, wouldn’t it be best to just face the problem head on?

But how would he even begin to go about that? Would he sit down in his own version of Hannibal’s Memory Palace, look across the office with him, and use the shade of the man he knew to psychoanalyse this new aspect of their relationship? That felt almost worse than having Abigail be the one to point out that he was fixated with Hannibal in the first place. 

He could also just continue trying to ignore it as long as he could, giving in occasionally only when he was asleep or his defences were down. That was more his style after all. Hide away from the problems and ignore them as long as possible. 

There was another problem he was trying to ignore though, and this one he felt a little better equipped to handle. 

As he kept flashing back to the dream memory of Hannibal’s hand undoing his pants and slipping in to take hold of him, he realised how long it had been since anyone had touched him, including himself. It felt like an itch just under his skin, a buzzing gnat that beat its wings against the inside of his skull. 

Hell, there were plenty of medical benefits to masturbation. iIt might even help get his mind off his throbbing temple. 

He chuffed at the fact that half of his mind was trying to convince the other half to masturbate like a reticent date.  _Come on babe, it’ll feel good, I promise._

Still there were things he needed to do, and he didn’t want to give Abigail another traumatising scene to walk in on, so he could wait. He would wait even if his skin felt two sizes too small and his groin was annoyingly sensitive. 

A thought occurred to him and it brought a grimace of a smile to his lips. Masturbating later could be the carrot on the stick to get him through the day. He was tired and sore and ached all over, he needed one small thing to be able to look forward to. And that certainly fit the bill. 

Bleary as he was from prolonged sleep deprivation, he went down into the cabin and scrounged through his nav station for a piece of paper and a pen.

“You look chipped.” Abigail looked up from her book. She was sprawled out on one of the settees, a blanket pulled up around her waist against the slight chill to the air. 

“You look comfortable.” It was a meaningless response as he rifled through a few charts, still looking for a piece of blank paper.

She rolled her eyes at him and went back to her book. 

He was glad that she hadn’t pressed the issue. He felt a little too discombobulated to lie well. 

A stack of post-it-notes was hidden under the log book, so he grabbed that and went back up on deck. Sitting behind the dodger to keep out of the wind, he balanced the notes on his knee and wrote ‘To Do List’ across the top of the paper. Good, that sounded better than ‘Countdown to Masturbation List’ and was equally as accurate. 

Tapping the pen against the paper, a small dot started to form as he rolled his lip under his teeth. What did he need to do? He scanned the boat quickly, inventorying problems he’d noted over the past few days. 

Well, he needed to fix the broken line for the preventer. iIf it wasn’t too badly frayed he could splice the segments back together or if it was too far gone then he could just thread a new rope through the block and tackle and call that good. What else? He needed to pump out the bilge after all those days of heavy rains. Even if the boat was water tight with the hatches battened, some water still always found a way into the bilge through the mast boot. The autopilot had also been throwing a few odd errors recently, so he really needed to investigate that. There were some rust stains that he could soak with oxalic acid. And to round out the list he needed to download the latest grib files and look over his course. 

He looked at it all. 

To Do List

-Preventer

-Bilge

-Autopilot

-Rust stains

-Grib files

He nodded to himself, feeling like that was an appropriate list that was neither insurmountable nor needlessly long just to punish himself. Slipping the pen and the stack of notes in his pocket, he got to work. 

First things first, he pulled open the lazarette and found the broken preventer. A puff of breeze caught his attention and he watched the wind vane and then the sea around him. It didn’t look like the puff was indicative of any greater wind shift to come.

Turning his attention back to the preventer, he took a seat on the small folding chair that Abigail had insisted they set up in the middle of the cockpit and gave the broken line a good once over. He’d forgotten in the interim that the line hadn’t just split or snapped apart, but that the sheath had frayed away leaving the core to stretch out to double its normal length. He chewed at a flap of chapped skin on his lower lip. It was only when he tasted blood that he  stopped. 

“Well shit,” he sighed and started pulling the mangled line out of the preventer. Once he had the old line free and coiled at his feet, he chucked the length of it out over the side of the boat, giving it a burial at sea. It didn’t take long until the line was subsumed beneath the waves. 

He went back to the lazarette and found a fresh line. Restringing the preventer wasn’t too hard a task, but it did demand all his attention. It was only too easy for one or the other end of the block and tackle to flip around while he threaded the line through each of the pulleys or for the line to get twisted in on itself if he got the pulleys threaded out of order. 

A few muttered oaths and a few minutes later and he held up the preventer freshly fixed. It was a little thing but as he secured the preventer to the starboard railing to be ready for use later and crossed off the first item on his list, he felt a surge of pride. Sometimes he forgot how much he needed a win every now and again. 

This journey so far had been more of a death march of endurance, so having a small goal to achieve felt wonderful. 

The fact that he was one item closer to giving himself the go ahead to relax and unwind was a close second thought. 

Surprisingly though as he went through sucking out the bilge and investigating the error with the autopilot he managed to get his mind off Hannibal, the whole mess of dreams, and his own touch starvation. He was wholly focused on the tasks at hand, which was easier with the auto pilot than it had been with just the bilge. To drain it all he’d needed to do was flip the switch to turn on the bilge pump and then take the hose around to each segment of the bilge and suck it dry. It was a repetitive task that was made a bit more entertaining by talking with Abigail about her book. 

Apparently, she’d never read The Hobbit before and it had been stashed in one of the cupboards. It wasn’t Will’s, so it must have belonged to whomever had had the boat before. She read aloud over the sound of the bilge pump, trying and failing to do convincing New Zealand accents for each of the thirteen dwarves and Bilbo. 

How many other things had she missed out on from a normal childhood because of her father? Could he or Hannibal ever give her any of that back? No, most likely not. Childhood was a time for innocence and neither of them had any to spare. 

His mood dampened slightly by that thought, he’d gone on to crawl into the engine compartment to look over the autopilot’s mechanical and electrical systems. It was a puzzle and he liked puzzles, enjoyed finding the mechanical issues and fixing them. They were a simpler problem that he could find an answer for. Unlike so much else in his life, machines either worked or they didn’t, but he could almost always get them working again with enough time, effort, and a thick enough manual. 

The engine compartment was claustrophobic and hot even when the engine wasn’t running, so sweat poured down his back and he stripped off his shirt. Grease coated his fingers as he took the autopilot apart, piece by piece, and checked it against the schematics in the manual. Nearly two hours passed in that manner, his muscles slowly building up acid and aching as he held himself in that cramped place, reaching around to impossible angles to work his way around the bulkhead and the engine block. 

He was pulled out of his trouble solving by a tap on his calf, and he jumped, hitting the back of his head against the end of a bolt on the engine. 

“Sorry,” Abigail immediately bit out, wincing sympathetically.

Twisting around enough to look back at her, he waved off her apology. 

“I was just wondering if you wanted something to drink? You’ve been back there so long Bilbo just managed to beat Gollum at the riddle game.”

That gave him a moment of confusion as his brain tried to switch tracks. Right, she was reading the Hobbit. “Sure. Something to drink sounds good.” Had he ever finished reading the Hobbit? He couldn’t remember, but he knew he’d started it one year in school for a book report. Had they moved before the report was due? For the life of him he couldn’t remember the ending.

She disappeared for a moment and then came back with a cold beer can. “Maybe hold that to the back of your head first?”

He didn’t bother hiding his smile at the thoughtful gesture. “Thanks. I’ll do that.”

Her answering smile took years off her face and almost lifted the darkness from her eyes. 

Almost.

He went back to work on the autopilot. 

It took another hour before he found what had happened. The copper plating on the commutator inside the autopilot’s electromagnetic engine had worn down in a few sections, so that whenever the autopilot tried to make an adjustment and stopped over one of those sections, it would fault out. 

Taking a piece of copper pipe that was about the same diameter, he cut segments to size and soldered them into place. As soon as he had the commutator back in place, he ran the autopilot through its paces and whooped when it didn’t throw a single fault. 

The beer became a celebratory drink as he crossed off another item from his list. 

The list reminded him of the ultimate celebration at the end of his work and he had to set off right into his next task to keep from rubbing at himself through his pants. Some days it was just harder than others not to want to follow through. 

He never would have thought of himself as an overly sexual or even sensual person. His libido had been every bit as raucous as any other teenage boy’s, but his empathy and the disastrous effects it had had on his few attempts at relationships had somewhat beaten it out of him. Spending an entire day distractedly thinking about jacking himself off later was something he hadn’t had to deal with in a while, and as much of an inconvenience as it was, it felt kind of nice. 

The rust stains were coming from one of the cleats where a screw had begun to oxidize. He mixed the oxalic acid in a bucket of water and dropped a rag in to soak. Pulling on gloves to keep his skin safe from the acid, he wrapped the rag around the cleat and left it to soak for a few minutes. While the acid did its work, he peeled off his gloves and went down into the cabin to his nav station. 

Tapping the keyboard of his laptop, he waited for the screen to come back to life. He turned on the single side band radio and booted up his offshore email client. There was a template saved in his drafts for requesting fresh grib files, so he copied that into a fresh message and updated the latitude and longitude of the segment of ocean he wanted weather files for. Then he scrolled down the list of receiver stations and tested to see if he could get on with the nearest one, looking over the propagation chart to ensure there wouldn’t be too much interference from solar radiation. It would be even better if he waited until after dark to send it, but with how small the email was he felt reasonably sure he could power it out in a timely fashion. 

He flipped off every electronic he could before hitting send, wanting as little interference from his own electronics as possible. The email that was little more than a few bytes of information still took ten minutes to send, just because it was four tries before he finally connected to the receiver station long enough to send off the tiny request. Still, it was contact with the outside world and for that he was grateful. The request was coded and would receive an automated response of the grib files he’d asked for, however those would be big enough that he’d be better off waiting until dark to try downloading them. Until then the response would just wait in his queue, ready to be downloaded the next time he connected to a station. 

Such a different world from that on land where he had been endlessly connected through the cell phone in his pocket, a computer inside it strong enough to make him feel antiquated himself. 

He went back out to check on the progress of the acid. Back on went the gloves, and he lifted the rag, smiling when he saw that the stains were simply gone. The acid had eaten right through them while leaving the deck whole and unblemished. Perfect. Tossing the extra acid mixture over the side, he filled the bucket with water and cleaned off the base of the cleat, not wanting to leave any residual acid around to irritate his skin if it got on his lines. 

Another item crossed off his list. 

He stared at the last item, the grib files, and held an internal debate over whether he could consider that item effectively finished for now, or if it would be better to wait until after dark when he’d downloaded them and looked over any important storm data. His groin throbbed in time with his temple in answer. He didn’t want to wait that long, and he’d gotten the request off, so he could consider it done enough for his purposes. 

Now there was only one last thing to do: check and see if Abigail was willing to go on watch while he went down for a ‘nap’. 

Looking down the companionway, he saw her still sprawled out on the settee, only this time the book was folded over her knee and her eyes were closed, chin resting against her chest. He smiled at the sight, feeling warm and slightly paternal. The purity of the moment was only ruined by the very small voice that commented on how opportune it was that she was asleep and wouldn’t hear him if he made any noises.

Not that he was planning on making any noises, but still. 

He stood back up in the cockpit and put his hands to the small of his back, stretching out. He’d done everything he’d set out to do, but there was still a brief hesitation that stopped him from slinking down the stairs to his aft cabin and making with the leisure time. He inspected the hesitation, prodded at it experimentally. Why was he hesitant?

Hannibal.

The answer was instantaneous as it was surprising. He was worried that Hannibal would creep into his thoughts again if pleasure was involved, that he would be setting out to touch himself and somehow the good doctor would find a way to fill his fantasies with a little added spark. That thought disturbed him.

It also delighted him.

He wasn’t sure how to deal with it, so denial seemed an appropriate response. 

Giving one last look out to the expanse of ocean around him, he made sure there was nothing on the horizon before he went down into his cabin. 

He closed the hatch to his cabin, wanting at least a moment’s warning should Abigail wake up and come looking for him. It wasn’t likely to happen, they were both rather independent and tended to give each other a wide berth, but it was still something he’d rather avoid if possible. It was one thing to have his dogs walk in on him jacking off; it would be another thing altogether to have Abigail walk in on him doing it.

Was this what parents thought about all the time? Worrying about their kids walking in on them while they were trying to enjoy themselves? Practicality warred with his paternal instincts for a moment as he pulled the lube out of a drawer by his bed. In the spirit of expediency, he grabbed a towel from the bathroom and situated himself on his bed, propping himself up with some pillows until he was comfortable. He didn’t bother taking his pants off, just unzipping them and pulling his flaccid dick out from inside his underwear. 

He poured a dollop of lube onto his hands and rubbed them together, warming it up a little before he moved to touch himself. He wrapped one hand around himself, his other hand moving down further to toy with his testicles. Keeping the touches light, almost teasing, he ran his tongue over his lower lip and let his eyes slip closed. He could have just gone right into it, but after building up tension all day long he felt he deserved to do this right and enjoy himself. 

Leaning his head back against the pillows, he eased his breathing into something slow and rhythmic, finding a nice pace to compliment the delicate touches. He wrapped his hand a little firmer around himself and started long, slow strokes, twisting just a bit at the end of each pull. He rolled his thumb over his slit and felt the first hint of arousal warming between his thighs. 

His lip caught on his upper teeth and he bit it lightly, enjoying the dull pain. 

Two hands started kneading his aching shoulders. 

His eyes shot open and he struggled to twist around, seeing nothing but the pillows behind him, the sensation of hands gone. 

He knew those hands. Fuck.

Easing himself back against the pillows, he let himself relax again, silently chastising himself for freaking out. It wasn’t anything bad, in fact, he wanted the hands back. Almost as swiftly as he admitted that to himself, the sensation of Hannibal’s hands returned to his shoulders, working out the aches and pains from weeks at sea. Hannibal’s name fell from his lips in a silent whisper as he started pumping himself again. 

He felt lips on his neck and he craned his head to one side to give him more room, loving the warm breath ghosting over his skin. A chill ran through him as he felt Hannibal’s teeth toy with him, a sharp nip that would neither bruise nor mar the skin, but that set his body ablaze all the same. He moaned and started pumping himself a little faster, his other hand tugging at his balls as he felt them tighten. 

Hannibal’s lips found his earlobe and began sucking, teeth pressed delicately against his skin, drawing a sharp breath out of him. 

How had he never thought to do this before? Oh right, he’d never admitted to himself before that he wanted Hannibal, craved this touch. How often had he found himself grounded by the simplest of touches from the man, long before there was anything sensual involved? Hannibal had been his paddle, his foundation; and even after the betrayal he’d still gone back to him and their therapy to find a sense of safety. 

“You let Jack give you an excuse to come back to me.” Hannibal’s words puffed against the shell of his ear, drawing a fresh moan from Will. “You’ll always come back to me.”

He nodded, knowing it was true the minute Hannibal said it. He bit his lip harder and started thrusting into his hand, enthusiasm building as he felt Hannibal’s hands moved down the outsides of his shoulders, trailing down until they grabbed his hips and stilled his motion. 

“Not yet.”

“No?”

“No, Will. Not yet.” Hannibal let go of one side of Will’s hips to reach up and capture his chin, drawing his face around for a kiss. His tongue pushed inside his mouth while his hand stayed tight, keeping them locked together.

It was strange to think that this was the first time he consciously remembered kissing Hannibal. It felt as if he’d been made for it, their lips moving together seamlessly. As he concentrated on the kiss he could feel Hannibal hard behind him, the thought momentarily confusing before melting away into the pleasant haze of understanding that they both wanted this. 

Hannibal’s hand let go of Will’s chin when it was clear he wasn’t going to try to struggle away from his touch, and his hand went down to wrap around Will’s own on his erection. “Now,” he whispered into the kiss. “You’ve been such a good boy, struggling all day to stay on task, waiting for me to come to you again.”

Was that right? Had he known he was waiting for Hannibal? It sounded right as Hannibal’s tongue wrapped around his own and their lips crashed together. He thrust up into both of their hands and moaned into Hannibal’s mouth. The feeling of both their hands together on him was enough to make his toes curl, Hannibal’s fingers just slightly longer than his own, the tips brushing against his soft foreskin with each thrust. Hannibal’s hands didn’t have the same rough callouses that his did. Hannibal’s hands were cultured and almost soft. 

What would it feel like if he took his hand away and just let Hannibal jack him off? 

This wasn’t a dream, so there was no need to worry about waking up before they were finished. It wasn’t real either though. It was safely within his own fantasies and he could play it over again and again as often as he wanted to. 

The question of whether Hannibal felt the same way in real life wasn’t a question for now though, it wasn’t something that could darken his mood as they moved together on his bed, with the sea rocking them gently. 

He felt the pressure building in his gut, his loins, his throbbing cock. He was close, but he also felt that Hannibal had too much control. So he bit him, hard. Hannibal’s blood flowed between their gnashing teeth and the taste of it sent him over the edge. He stifled a scream into Hannibal’s mouth and rode the waves of pleasure as Hannibal kept pumping him, brushing away his own hand that was spasming too much to be of any use. 

“I want to keep you here, on this precipice, clinging to me as I bring you to the edge again and again.” 

Will shook his head even as he let him build on that release. He couldn’t give up that much control, not on this trip, not when he needed to man the ship. That didn’t mean he didn’t want it though. It sounded like the best thing in the world, finding what he needed in Hannibal’s arms. He managed to find his voice, “What if I make you cling to me instead?”

Hannibal’s smile was predatory as he nipped at his jaw. “Why Will, are you propositioning me?”

“Maybe I am.”

“Do you know what I’d want?”

He thought about it but shook his head. 

Lips brushed against his ear again as Hannibal whispered, “I’d want you to fuck me, and once you were well and truly exhausted, I’d want my chance to return the favour.”

“Have I dreamt of that before?” Maybe it was the orgasm, but that didn’t sound like a terrible idea. 

Hannibal licked his ear. “No, you’ve never let me touch you this much, let alone fuck you.”

Will grinned, “Then it sounds like I have some very exciting dreams to look forward to.”


	9. Chapter 9

The moon had already set as Will stared out at the dark ocean, waves like endless rolling hills of a prairie. The scent of the open ocean wasn’t that of the shoreline that people so often imagined it to be, but a freshness and a tang of salt. The world felt primordial, nothing more than the vast ocean stretching out around his boat in all directions and the sky impossibly large above. A world of limitless potential for creation and destruction.  

Constellations shone dimly overhead, a few clouds obfuscating their distant fires from view. Scorpio spanned nearly the entire breadth of the heavens and he traced the tail in its sweeping arch across the sky. There were starting to be different constellations than those in the skies over Wolf Trap.  

It was forcibly humbling to be reminded of how insignificant he was before the enormity of the universe, of his own world. He could never arrive in Europe, his boat could be lost at sea, and the world would keep right on turning. Only a few people would ever notice his passing, even less would care. Lounds would have one less subject to write about, but she’d find someone new to harass easily enough. Jack would have to find a new blood hound to track down the crazies. Alana would find some new broken individual to tell herself not to get involved with, although he feared Hannibal had broken her beyond repair.  

His dogs would miss him. Would they be the only ones? 

Then again, they were all strays. Each and every single one of them had had another owner before him and they could adapt to having another owner after him. That was the thing about strays, he collected animals he knew that could survive without him if things turned out that way. They needed someone. But it didn’t have to be him, or at least it didn’t have to be him forever.   

He huddled in on himself a little further, pulling the collar of his coat up against his neck to keep out the night air. Darkness threatened to seep into him from the morass surrounding him.  

No, that wasn’t accurate. The dark morass was already inside of him, had been inside of him since his youth. He’d always lived with it perched just behind his eyes, dimming the light of everything he experienced. Maybe the stars burned as bright as the noon day sun, but that darkness inside of him made it impossible to know.  

The water churned up in his wake burbled as the boat sailed through the night. He watched his past flow out behind him like the sea foam in the boat wake, disappearing beyond the crest of the next wave. He was sailing towards an unseen horizon, leaving nothing to show his passing.  

The ocean went on forever. He closed his eyes and just listened to the subtle sounds of the night, exhaustion threatening to pull him into unconsciousness if he lingered there too long. There were the light taps of lines when the wind slacked enough for the jib sheet to hit the deck, and the soft rub of the sheet against the life lines when the wind pulled the jib forward. There were quiet groans and beeps from the autopilot, which strove so hard to keep him on coarse. There was the wind itself playing over the waves, soft caplets blowing off into foam.  

Until the wind changed, the boat was perfectly balanced to continue without him. He’d made a world that could work without his input for this perfect, golden moment in time.  

The pendulum released, swinging in time with the rocking of the hull. It slowed to a stop. He saw the passage of time, Nola returning to the New England coast, her previous owner spending lazy Sunday afternoons shining her brightwork. She was just another stray, another place where he had carved a momentary belonging for himself.  

She was a ship keeping him afloat, just as the dogs had done in the imagined ocean of his backyard, only now he didn’t have the lights of his home to return to.  

How easy it would be to just slip into the ready arms of the ocean and end it all.  

The thought didn’t surprise him. 

It wasn’t the first time he’d thought seriously of suicide; that had been another lifelong companion in that darkness within him. Some years he thought he’d shaken it off as the press of achievement and advancement had catapulted him onward, but always it would find him again when things settled.  

He remembered New Orleans, staring down the barrel of his Glock 19, debating eating the bullet when he’d heard the news that his evaluation had come back and he was no longer considered stable enough for active duty. He hadn’t been willing to shoot in the line of duty, and another cop had paid for his hesitation with his life. He was willing to shoot now.  

The barrel kissed his lips and he parted them for it. It tasted acrid and metallic as he inched the gun inside his mouth, tongue protesting for only a moment before moving aside. The iron sights scraped the roof of his mouth and the fresh bite of coppery blood filled his nostrils along with the scent of his cleaning solvent.  

Throbbing shoulder still healing from the knife wound, the gun had felt awkward in his hands. He’d played his thumb over the texture of the grip for a long time, not registering the action as one meant to sooth him, while he fought his gag reflex. He spent too much of his life investigating other mysteries to turn that high-powered perception inward and delve into his own.  

The gun had fallen to the carpeted floor when his shaking hands could no longer hold it.  

Feeling like he’d failed himself all over again, he’d turned to the sleeping form of his lover, the swell of her hip accentuated by the thin sheet draped artlessly about her. A car drove passed and the headlights illuminated the spill of her petite, naked breasts and short auburn hair. The light faded off onto the ceiling and then was gone, plunging the room back into darkness.  

His gaze slid to the gun between his feet and he’d hung his head and sobbed; great silent, wracking sobs that shook his athletic frame. He wasn’t going to be a cop any longer, the sole thing that had driven him to succeed for the past decade. He was thirty-three and he was back to square one. That tasted far more bitter than the bullet ever could have.  

He remembered a dock in backwater Louisiana, the news that his mother had left them and wasn’t coming back. His father hadn’t sat out on the dock with him, he’d told him at dinner and then found solace in the bottom of a bottle. He was too young then to understand the coping power of alcohol.  

He’d kicked his dangling legs at the end of the pier and he’d asked himself what he’d done wrong, why she’d left. She’d known he was different than other children, but she’d never wanted people to talk about it. She’d protected him from the stares of the other parents, fiercely daring them to say anything about her strange little boy to her face. Their eyes had slid away, incapable of defeating a mother’s devotion.  

What had changed? Why was she leaving him to deal with those staring eyes alone?  

He’d thought about kicking off the dock and slipping into the water.  

There had been other times, when the thoughts were nothing more than mere ideation rather than actionable plans.  

Water was usually how his suicidal thoughts emerged. He had an affinity to it, felt a kinship to the concept of slipping away into the stream and becoming part of something larger than himself. His death could sublimate into so much nutrients, so much more water to become part of the cycle; all while promising him an end to the isolation.  

He was unique.  

That was a curse far more than a blessing.  

With how cold the Atlantic was at this latitude death would come to him swiftly. One deep breath in and he could start to sink, ignoring the pain in his lungs for a short while. No one would ever need know that he had chosen to give up. It would read like an accident.  

Boat vanished at sea, all hands lost. 

His grip on the arm rests of his chair tightened painfully around the brittle plastic. It groaned in protest. 

He felt a hand on his shoulder, knew without turning that Hannibal was standing there, staring out over the same immutable ocean that called to him.  

“Suicide is the enemy, Will.” His thumb rubbed the column of his neck, pushing aside his collar. It felt warm and alive against his chilled skin.  

He didn’t say anything in response. What lie could he come up with that would sate Hannibal? He was inside his head, he knew better than anyone how close he was to succumbing to that age-old foe.  

Nothing more was said, nothing more was offered, just the two frozen in their own worlds, connected by that single point of contact. It was a lifeline if he so chose to take it.  

Hannibal shifted his weight once, his breathing deep and controlled.  

He wondered what that control cost him.  

After what felt like an hour, he shrugged out from under Hannibal’s grip and turned. The doctor was gone, he was alone with his thoughts once again.  

However the ocean’s call was muted now, the siren song not so pressing as it had been before.  

Now he could look out over that sprawling expanse of water and sky and feel small but content. He was a part of this world, he still held a place here. Hannibal had made a place for him. There was a purpose and direction to the course of his boat and the wake streaming out behind it.  

He was crossing the entire Atlantic Ocean to find Hannibal and gain closure, but no matter what happened there was a part of the man with him already. His stomach gave a weary throb and his hand laid over the scar, separated by layers of clothes and thousands of miles. Hannibal had engraved his name on his very soul, whether he wanted it there or not. He could ignore it, he could deny it, but in the dark of the night he felt it like truth in his bones.  

Tonight, he didn’t need comfort or companionship. Hannibal had already given him something stronger: an enemy. 

He could fight a while longer, push a little harder.  

Abigail’s voice filtered up from inside the dark cabin as she woke from her nap. “I’m making a sandwich, you want one?”  

He smiled, and it almost felt real. “Yeah, love one.” 

\--- 

“Do we talk about it?” 

Will turned from admiring the main, half-eaten sandwich in hand, and found Hannibal sitting in the small deck chair.  

He looked comically out of place in his three-piece suit and debonair coifed hair. The darkness sapped the colour from the fibres of his suit. What might it have looked like underneath the morning sun? In the night it looked grey and off-white, such drab colours on so flamboyant a personality disconcerting.  

“I was hoping you’d stick to my sexual fantasies rather than coming out to psychoanalyse my suicidal ideation.” 

Hannibal gave him a knowing smile. “L’appel du vide.” 

He stared, the French term unfamiliar to him. Given the smile he’d been expecting some mildly derisive term of endearment.  

Hannibal unbuttoned his suit jacket, straightening the sides of it around him. “The call of the void. It refers to the phenomenon of self-sabotage. You stare out over the wine-dark water, your mind perceives the very real threat of falling in, adrenaline spikes and pumps through your body. Nature has built us to survive, but that very survival mechanism means we are nearly fixated on death.” He crossed his legs, one pant leg hiking up to reveal his black dress socks.  

All Will could think of was how impractical his Italian leather shoes were for on the boat.  

“The thought of dying in a watery grave has been implanted in your mind, but now your mind takes over from your body. You fixate on the idea, it builds memetic strength and propagates.” 

“Are you trying to tell me everyone feels this call then?” 

“No, but it is a more common phenomenon than most believe. We never hit upon you having any suicidal ideation or active suicidal plans during your therapy.”  

He tried to decipher Hannibal’s look. “There were a lot of things we didn’t touch in therapy.” 

Hannibal nodded, assenting. 

Moving around him, he took a seat on one of the cockpit cushions. He took a bite of the sandwich, glancing back to the lights of the cabin. If he called out he could ask Abigail if she saw Hannibal as well. Maybe he was a spectre haunting both of them. He held his tongue. He’d rather keep the dream than be confronted with the reality.  

“So,” he spoke around a bite of black forest ham and processed American cheese, “what would be your plan for therapy?” 

Frowning in distaste at the poor cuisine, Hannibal scoffed, knowing full well Will was showing such poor manners because of his presence. “Do you want to live?” 

The question surprised him. He chewed as he ruminated on it.  

In his mind he’d always viewed wanting to live through one of two paradigms. The first was that of someone in danger of dying: whether during war or from disease or bleeding out. Faced with their own mortality, it was common to feel a surge of the will to live, coursing through ever fibre of your being until you were overcome with it. The second was the will to live through the day to day drudgery and pain.  

He’d come up against his own mortality enough times to know he wanted to live in a survival based reactionary way.  

It was the daily decision to continue existing that he’d found more difficult.  

The wind changed, and he put their conversation on pause to go and adjust the trim of the sails.  

When he came back he found Hannibal’s gaze had followed him through his simple actions. He took his seat again and found what little comfort he could against the non-skid surface and cool wood. Letting loose a deep sigh, he crossed his arms and frowned at Hannibal. That small an action did little to protect him from Hannibal’s probing insistence to  _see_  him, but it was better than nothing. Even the meagre barrier of crossed arms could sometimes ward away errant psychiatrists.  

But what did he gain from hiding from this version of Hannibal, in his own mind? 

“Fine.” Reluctantly he let the words be drawn out of him, “Sometimes. There’s always been a weight in the back of my mind, a burden that made living a struggle. At first, I assumed it was just that I was unique.” He spat the word out like something dirty. “Later I came to find that it wasn’t my overabundance of empathy that made it difficult.” 

He thought of holding his head under the water in a sink, of his mind leaking out until the water ran red, and Jack interrupting him.  

“If I don’t keep myself in motion I begin to unravel. I can feel it, like sun rot eating through the stitches of my person suit. Only instead of being a monster underneath, I’m hollow, and all my nothingness spills out.” Wet and thick and cloying, he’d die suffocated on his own impotence. How did he shadow box with the demons in his mind that said life wasn’t worth living? How did he argue with the very real problem that living was costing him more than he could afford to pay? 

He thought of college when he used to walk along the edge of the university fountain and drunkenly joke to himself that it was just deep enough he could drown in it if he didn’t stand up.  

Whatever expression or emotion he had expected to see on Hannibal’s face, feral rage wasn’t it. His back stiffened as he saw the anger and fear pass behind those dark eyes. He quirked a brow in response. Confusion was a shield as much as anything else.  

Hannibal composed himself with effort. “Had you committed suicide, I never would have had the chance to meet you.” 

That didn’t explain the anger, did it? “Were you just--,” he considered his words carefully, “angry at my suicidal thoughts?” 

“Yes.” 

The simple, honest answer surprised him almost even more. He would have expected Hannibal to divert the question back around to him.  

“Why?”  

“Why?” Hannibal pursed his lips. “I have viewed suicide as the enemy my entire life. I fought for each foot hold I could manage in this world. To have lost you to anything or anyone other than my own hand would have been unthinkable.” Possessiveness rolled off Hannibal in waves, his eyes dark with bloodlust.  

In another mind-set Will might have worried at how comforted he felt by that answer. Instead he took another exaggerated bite of his sandwich and watched the serious expression bleed away on Hannibal’s face, replaced by his usual repugnance at Will’s meals.  

Will couldn’t see it, but he was beginning to appreciate Hannibal’s presence in his life again; and even the twinge of his scar didn’t bother him so much as he pushed up to join Hannibal on the deck chair.  


	10. Chapter 10

Will grumbled as he tapped his fingers against the counter of the nav station, glaring at the GRIB file. There wasn’t really anything he could do about the weather, but how he wished he could. This was the third day of becalmed seas. He’d been motoring along at three knots per hour to continue making any progress, but he only had so much fuel onboard and he didn’t want to run out in the middle of nowhere.  

He scowled at the GRIB file again before angrily shutting the laptop’s screen down. 

“You shouldn’t do that.” Abigail didn’t look up from her book, just licked her thumb and turned the page.  

She was right, of course. Dammit.  

The navigational computer needed to be left on and running to record their track. With a few muttered curses, he opened the lid back up and brought the laptop out of suspend.  

“It’s not the laptop’s fault,” she added. 

Leaning back against the bulkhead, he closed his eyes. “I know. I could just really use some wind right now.” 

“And the GRIBs still aren’t predicting any?” 

“Not for another two days. We’ve got two larger weather systems on either side of us cancelling each other out. Meaning we’re stuck in an impromptu doldrums between them.”  

Abigail finally folded her book over her forefinger and looked at him. “Are we going to run out of fuel in two days?” 

He thought about that. “No, not if we keep this pace. I’ve got a few jerry jugs that are still full, so we’ll be fine.” 

“Then I really don’t see what the problem is. Sure, it’s slow and lousy having the motor running 24/7, but there are worse things. And hey, we can have the electronics on all night if we want. Couldn’t do that if we were just running off the solar panels.”  

She was trying to cheer him up, he knew that, and he even appreciated it in an oblique manner. The problem was that he didn’t  _like_  motoring, especially for long periods like this. It ended up fraying his already damaged nerves.  

They’d be motoring along and then a little puff of wind would come in, he’d turn off the motor, set the sails, get a few knots of boat speed, and then watch as they slowed down to a stop again; which meant the motor came right back on. It was discouraging. The sound of the motor was annoying as well, and although it should have melded into background white noise, somehow it remained just as grating as when he first turned it on.  

Was it so much to want to have wind? Nola was a sail boat, dammit, she just felt better when she was sailing. Motoring along may have meant they were making a straight line to their eventual destination, but it also meant that Nola didn’t ride the waves quite so well and the overall motion of the ocean was exaggerated. Without the boat heeling under sail, there was far more rolling with each wave, making for a far less comfortable ride.  

Pushing up from the nav station, he walked over to the Engel fridge and pulled out a cold beer. Abigail was right about one thing, having the engine running all the time meant he could keep the Engel running day and night without worrying about draining the batteries. Normally he shut it off at night, knowing the cold would mostly stay in the insulated box until morning. During the day, so long as there was a reasonable amount of sun, the solar panels could easily keep up with its power needs.  

He popped off the bottle cap and tossed it out the companionway, unable to hear the quiet plink as it fell into the ocean over the droning of the motor. Cold beer really was one of mankind’s crowning achievements.  

“Can I have one?” 

Finishing his long draught, he watched her face, unsure of her expression. “Do you want one?” 

“No, but it would have been nice to be offered one.” 

She had him there. “Next time I’ll be sure to offer you one.” 

“Good.” 

He was smiling before he even noticed it, her dry humour having successfully taken the edge off his aggravation. That was something at least.  

“If you’re not too tired, I think I’m gonna take a nap once I finish this chapter. 

“Yeah, that’s fine.” He sipped at his beer. His exhaustion had sunken into his bones, but it wasn’t in danger of having him fall asleep on a watch yet. He could go for a few more hours before needing to get some shut eye for himself. “Sleep well when you do.” 

Her answering smile was almost completely hidden by her book. It seemed like he wasn’t the only one whose mood was improved by the company. 

\--- 

Outside the sound of the motor was diminished, quiet enough that he could relegate it to just white noise. The sound of wavelets slapping against the hull as they slowly motored on was a far more appealing ambiance.  

Taking a seat in the deck chair, he looked out over the calm ocean. There were still waves, there would always be waves generated from wind and current hundreds of miles away; but there were none generated from wind in his area, no little whitecaps, no sea birds wheeling and diving among the waves without any effort. The sea looked as lifeless as he often felt.  

Oddly enough, looking out over the water today didn’t have the same siren song of suicide as it had under the moonlight days prior. He knew he was still depressed, not that he would admit it to anyone else, but at least in the light of day his situation seemed worth fighting through. Besides, who would help Abigail get the boat in to shore if he was gone? She was learning plenty on this trip, but she was far from being ready to pilot the craft on her own. She still occasionally messed up on using the toilet pump, he didn’t want to imagine what would happen if she tried to sail without supervision.  

And what would become of his dogs? 

Depression had lied earlier; its saccharine siren song a fallacy. He had reasons to live. They might not be good ones or all that compelling, but they were reasons.  

His grip on the beer bottle tightened, knuckles whitening against his sun kissed skin. He had reasons.  

Most importantly, he had Hannibal.  

Whatever else he needed from Hannibal, he needed closure. They had been left alive, he and Abigail, and he wanted to know why. He needed to know why. Was Abigail correct in assuming that Hannibal had left them alive on purpose so they would chase him down and find him? That seemed a convoluted plan that hinged upon too many variables for even Hannibal to predict; but then Hannibal wasn’t predictable in and of himself. Maybe that was why he’d done it. Or maybe he’d left them both alive as a form of torture, forcing them to live on in the wake of everything they’d had and lost.  

He knew personally just what a torment living could be. Killing them both might have been the kinder option.  

Quiet laughter came up through the companionway, Abigail laughing at something in The Hobbit. Good, she needed to laugh more. She was far too young to look so haunted. He would have given anything to take that pain and knowledge from her eyes, but that wasn’t in his power. She’d been through Hell and faced her demons head on. She’d be facing them for the rest of her life.  

If Lounds had her way, they both would.  

He raised the bottle and found only a single drop passed his lips. Empty. Tossing it over the side, he watched it bob in the wake, slowly growing smaller and smaller as they motored away from it. Maybe he should have filled it with sea water first so it would have sunk, but then maybe someone would find his bottle without a message and understand his devastation. Would Hannibal understand if he sent an empty bottle to him?  

No. Hannibal was many things, but as far as he knew, a seafarer was not among them.  

Maybe if he handed him an empty bottle while playing the Police song?  

That likely wouldn’t work either, Hannibal didn’t strike him as the type who had listened to The Billboard charts ever. Unless maybe there was a Billboard Classical Top 100? 

A ghost of a breeze blew and he instantly looked up to see if it was enough to affect the wind vane. Nothing. He cursed again and got up, needing to do something to externalise his pent-up energy.  

The hatch to his aft cabin opened and he spun around to see Hannibal leaning against the opening, smiling like the cat who got the cream.  

Well, that was one way to work off pent-up energy, not a good way, but it was a way. 

“Coming my way?” Hannibal asked with perfect seriousness.  

Will couldn’t help rolling his eyes. “Please don’t resort to pickup lines.” 

“Well,” he continued, ignoring him, “are you?” 

He was going to regret this somehow, he knew it, but if his imagination was being so kind as to proffer up Hannibal as a distraction from dead wind and calm seas, who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth? He was actually the exact person for the job, never trusting any gift to be genuine or beneficial, but he didn’t want to psychoanalyse himself closely enough to see the problems with this new coping mechanism of his.  

The fact that he had already lost control of this particular fantasy was something he could address later; or never, never was fine.  

“Abigail is planning on going down for a nap soon,” he replied softly enough that the girl in question wouldn’t hear him.  

“Worried she’ll find out that you’re using your imagination to carry on an illicit affair with me?” 

“More worried about scarring her for life if she walked in on us, on me, I mean.”  

Hannibal’s laugh was warm and rich. It reminded Will of curling up with his dogs in front of the fire on a winter’s afternoon. He wanted nothing more than to wrap himself up inside that laugh and bask in the embrace.  

“Will, you have a latch on your cabin door. Why not make use of it?” 

He crossed his arms and dragged his gaze away from Hannibal and out to the sea. He was supposed to be on watch. 

“Do you need me to drag you down here, take away your culpability?” 

He shot him a glare. “No.” 

They stared at one another as the motor droned on.  

“Well?” 

Will heaved a sigh and ran a hand through his greasy hair. He needed a shower. He needed a lot of things. Looking at Hannibal, he knew he needed to get laid. Blowing his bangs out of his face, he nodded once. “Once Abigail is asleep.” 

“You have no confidence in whispers, do you?” 

“I have no confidence in you.” 

Hannibal accepted the scathing remark affably. 

“God dammit, Hannibal. Get mad, react, something.” 

“Why? I have no regrets.” The glint in his eyes suggested that he knew he would get what he wanted from Will soon enough. Hannibal always seemed to have the upper hand on him. 

“How can you have no regrets?” ‘ _I’m drowning in them._ _’_  

He gave no answer, as mysterious as the Sphynx.  

“I hate you.” 

“I know.” 

That was it? 

Will turned away from him and stalked up to the bow, hand on the roller furling, eyes fixed on the path of sunlight creating a yellow brick road to the horizon. He heard Hannibal follow him, remaining a respectful distance behind.  

Puffy stratocumulus clouds slowly drifted across the sky in roving packs.  

“Tell me something,” Hannibal started. 

He didn’t want to talk to him, but he knew he couldn’t avoid his curiosity either. “What?” 

“What would my apology benefit you?” His voice came from next to Will’s ear and his hand slipped up under Will’s shirt, fingers brushing over the scar. His scar. “Would it heal this?” 

A moan escaped Will as that brief touch set his nerves on fire, and he hated Hannibal even more for doing this to him. He had marked him, ruining his hopes of forgetting. Hannibal’s fingers brushed over the scar again and he felt weak in the knees; however rather than giving into it and leaning back against him, he grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand out of his shirt. Spinning around, he was trapped between the bow pulpit and Hannibal. “It wouldn’t help anything, but sometimes we want to hear empty words.” 

“No,  _we_ don’t. The average masses do, the faceless chattel that rely on you to hunt the monsters for them, but not you or I. We know that empty words hold no real power.” 

How could this vision of Hannibal be as infuriating as the real thing?  

Hannibal cupped his cheek, thumb brushing over his stubble. “We are men of actions, Will. Empty platitudes do not become us.” 

“And here I thought you were fond of the sound of your own voice.” 

“Naturally, but I’m not performing for you anymore. You stripped me bare and exposed my innermost being.” He pushed forward, forcing Will to take a step back, his legs hitting the metal. There was no room between them and no where to go, Hannibal had him trapped. “I let you see me, but you didn’t want it.” 

Phantom pain of the knife ripped through Will and he drew a sharp breath in. “No, I did.” He hated the feeling of being manipulated, but he couldn’t let this go the same way as it had in the kitchen that night. So he covered Hannibal’s hand on his face and stared him in the eyes, forcing eye contact that so often overwhelmed him. Today was no exception, the red flecks in Hannibal’s eyes were almost carmine in the sunlight and flew in towards his pupils, drawing him in. Gravity seemed to originate from Hannibal directly and he tipped in towards it, catching himself just before they were kissing. “I wanted it.” His lips ghosted over Hannibal’s, “I still want it.” 

A breeze backwinded the jib and it slapped Hannibal’s back, pushing him into Will. 

The kiss was relentless, savagely hungry. They gripped at one another, clinging on against the sudden onslaught of emotion. Teeth clinked together and he tasted blood.  

A moan from Hannibal filled him with a sense of power he’d never imagined. He wanted it, wanted to find what other noises he could draw from him. Hannibal was right, he didn’t want empty apologies, he wanted Hannibal cursing and sweating beneath him, writhing as he controlled him through pleasure and promise. He wanted closure. 

He wanted to fuck Hannibal on the deck if the damn jib wasn’t flagging uselessly against them.  

Shoving him away, he pointed towards his cabin. “Go. I want you naked and ready on my bed in two minutes. I just… fuck… I need to make sure everything will be fine before I enjoy your company.”  

The look of satisfaction almost made him feel he’d been played. Maybe he had. Did it matter? 

Composing himself while Hannibal walked back, he grabbed onto the life lines and leaned forward, watching sunlight glint off the wavelets. It had been years since he’d been with a man and he didn’t know how his stomach would hold up against all the core work necessary for sex, but he wasn’t going to back down now. Besides, this was all in his mind. If he couldn’t enjoy his own fantasies, what was the world coming to? 

He double-checked the wind vane again, then scanned the horizon, but there was still no wind. Looking down into the windows of the main salon he saw that Abigail was no longer on the settee and the door to the front cabin was closed. Good, hopefully she’d get some restful sleep.  

He coiled up the tail of the jib sheet to get it out of the way. 

He was delaying. 

Fighting through his residual reservations, he stopped in his tracks as he stooped to descend the entryway to his cabin. Hannibal was very much naked on his bed, lube uncapped on the bed next to him, two fingers buried in his ass as he watched Will and worked himself open. He couldn’t draw his attention away from him, from the way that his body undulated to the unadulterated need in his gaze.  

He shuddered out a breath, blood rushing south so swiftly he felt almost lightheaded.  

At least Hannibal was a good listener.  

“Well?” Hannibal asked perfectly naturally, voice not showing any sign of what he was doing. 

Will swallowed.  

Closing the hatch behind him, he descended the ladder and stood at the foot of the bed, watching him a little longer, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.  

“You’re welcome to watch if you’d like, but I’d much prefer you to be an active participant over a voyeur. Unless, of course, that is what gets you off. But I was looking forward to that promise of you fucking me.” 

He fumbled with his belt, not allowing his eyes to leave Hannibal as he disrobed. Pulling his shirt over his head, he flung it to the far wall, muscles in his chest tense as his heartbeat steadily climbed. A terrible grin split his face as he undid his zipper and pulled himself free, leaving his pants and underwear on in a very conscious display of intention.  

“Not going to lose yourself entirely to me?” 

“I have to keep some of my composure, don’t you agree?” 

Hannibal’s eyes were fever bright. “I wouldn’t expect anything less of you. It suits you.” 

Will didn’t know where the confidence came from as he pulled Hannibal’s hand out, only to place the lube slickened fingers on his partially flaccid cock. “Give me a hand while I finish stretching you, won’t you?” 

Adjusting his position, Hannibal shifted onto his knees to present Will with his ass, while he started stroking him long and slow. One hand on the mattress, he looked over his shoulder at him, watching as Will lubed up and stuck two fingers in and sank them in to the root. “Will,” his voice tremulous with desire, he ground back against him.  

Scissoring his fingers and twisting each time he pulled back, he watched Hannibal watching him. Hannibal had already done a good amount of the work loosening himself up, which he wasn’t sure he was thankful for or not. There was always something special about feeling how tight your partner was, in opening them little by little. However, by the look on Hannibal’s face he got the feeling neither of them wanted to wait all that long for prep.  

He slipped a third finger in, curling all three and began hunting.  

“A little to your left.” 

“Don’t spoil it, Dr. Lecter, I want to find it on my own.” 

Hannibal laughed lustily. “As you wish.” Perhaps in retaliation however, he rolls his thumb over Will’s slit.  

“Ahhh.” Fire lanced up Will’s inner thighs and ignited his groin, which had steadily filled at Hannibal’s administrations. Two can play that game. Fingers hunting, he grabbed Hannibal’s hips with his free hand, feeling the roll of muscle over the prominent crest of the pelvis. His body called to him with all the force of a hurricane.  

And then his fingers brushed over the bundle of nerves and he watched Hannibal’s careful compose develop its first crack, just a slight twitch of his lips and a sharp inhale.  

“There we go.” Relentlessly diving in, he experimented with tapping, rubbing, circling, feeling his body twitch in sympathetic pleasure as he watched Hannibal begin to break for him. Sweat broke out on both of their skin and he had the strongest desire to lick it off him.  

“Will,” Hannibal gasped, taut as a bowstring, “please.” 

Please. 

Please. 

 _Please._  

Pulling his fingers free, grasping both hips now with damp hands, he lined himself in and pushed. Hannibal still tight around him, the muscle wall fought him as he sunk in further. “Lower down, the angle’s wrong.” 

Hannibal doesn’t delay, just lowered his face to the blankets and turned to watch Will. There was an emotion in his eyes that Will can’t admit to seeing. 

Love.  

Please, don’t be love. 

He shoved in hard, snapping his hips so that their bodies slap together and he drew a grunt from him. Better. Have him gasping and shaking with lust and physical pleasure, just don’t let him look like this could change things. It’s a hate fucking, he knew that, even as he quelled his own desire to see that love again, denied that he’ll never stop yearning for it.  

They don’t fit like puzzle pieces, Hannibal is too tight and he is too broken.  

He tried to thrust but his stomach aches and burns, fuelling his rage. “I fucking hate you. You did this to me, you reduced me to this.” 

“No Will, I elevated you to this.” 

Intent on degrading Hannibal, he doesn’t know why it’s his eyes that burn and threaten tears. So he closed them and pounds into him without concern for his body or pain. He drove home every last ounce of his pain, his sorrow, his anger, leaving it all deep inside him. It’s an eerily quiet affair as they both hold themselves in, only the sound of their bodies ramming together and their heavy breathing.  

It’s wrong but his body doesn’t care, all it needed is physical stimulation and that’s coming in droves. His rage sublimated into sexual pleasure and he felt the pressure build as his testicles tightened. The building climax feral in its intensity, but he refused to lose himself to it. Releasing into Hannibal felt right, leaving everything ugly inside him to purge himself. The typical afterglow of orgasm melted in the face of how ugly he felt, twisted and vile.  

Pulling free before Hannibal had his chance to finish, he turned and stalked to his bathroom to clean himself.  

“Do you feel better after having used and discarded me as you feel I used you?”  

He hated that Hannibal sounded pleased, content even, rather than outraged at him. He wanted Hannibal to hate him as much as he hates him. “Yes.” It’s a lie and they both know it.  

In the mirror he saw himself thoroughly unmade by Hannibal, his hair wild and his eyes dark. He looked dangerous and hollow. It took far too much effort to keep from punching his reflection.  

“…No.” 

“Ah, no, I thought not.” 

Turning from the mirror, he watched Hannibal lay down on his stomach, semen and lube idly dribbling back out of him. “Abigail says I need to come to terms with what it is I want from you.” 

That piqued Hannibal’s interest. 

“I want closure.” 

“No, you don’t.” 

The embers of his rage flared to life again at Hannibal’s defiance. “Fine then, Doctor,” he spat the title out derogatorily, “tell me what I want then.”  

“You want continuation.” 

A chill ran through him. 

“Now come to bed. I don’t mind you denying me my orgasm, but I would appreciate your company so we can both nap briefly. You need it.” 

Just like that Hannibal changed all the rules on him again. He blinked slowly.  

Hannibal held out a hand to him, and as if controlled by strings, he walked over and grasped it. He awkwardly pushed himself back into his pants before laying down at Hannibal’s side, unsure what was meant to happen next. When Hannibal made no move, he sighed and rolled onto his side, pulling him against his chest. “I hate you,” he murmured against his hair without emotion. 

“I love you too, Will.” 

And wasn’t that the truth?   


	11. Chapter 11

Sunlight streamed in through the open windows. The light summer breeze smelled of honeysuckle and damp earth as it toyed with the curtains. It must have rained during the night.

Will rolled over onto his side and wrapped his arms around Alana, burying his face in the tangles of her hair against the onslaught of light and the alarm clock’s incessant beeping. “Five more minutes,” he mumbled, squeezing her tighter as she laughed at him.

“Sorry babe, but you’re the one who set the alarm clock last night. Remember?” Alana turned in his grasp, the soft swell of her naked hip sliding beneath his touch. 

His breath caught as he felt her press her breasts against him, her own arms circling around him in mirror image of his. 

She rested their foreheads together, laughing gayly as her eyelashes brushed against his cheeks. “Come on, lazy bones, get up. We both need to get into work bright and early.”

Work. The word had an unnatural weight to it. He didn’t want to go to work, he wanted to stay in bed, sleep until he finally felt rested, maybe fool around in the afternoon just for the hell of it. Were they too old to play hooky? Screw it, they both deserved a day off. Maybe he’d call in sick; his students would probably appreciate having the day off.

The alarm started sounding again and disrupted his thoughts, louder this time with its second barrage of beeping. 

He groaned and squeezed her one last time before rolling over to slap at it blindly. He managed to thwack it off, but he also slapped his knuckles against the edge of the nightstand painfully, which only proved to verify his belief that getting out of bed truly wasn’t worth it. 

But then Alana was peppering kisses down the length of his neck and that made things a bit better. 

Barking from downstairs sounded as the entire pack climbed the stairs eagerly. Soon there was a furry invasion force rolling in, paws placed on the edge of the bed as they tried to bend but not break the no dogs on bed rule. Tongues assaulted both of them, bringing forth a peel of laughter from Alana as she shoved Buster off the bed.

“We could be a little late?” he asked as he scratched Winston behind the ear.

Her answer was an eye roll right before she shoved him towards the edge of the bed. “No, we can’t. Come on, take the dogs out and I’ll get the coffee started.”

“Coffee sounds good.” It wasn’t quite a good enough reason to start the day all on its own, but it helped. 

His toes curled against the chill of the floor, another mark against the concept of waking up and getting out of his warm cocoon. Shuffling over towards his dresser, he heard a wolf whistle from the bed as he stepped into his briefs. “Like the view?” he asked as he turned around, his gaze lingering on the way the sunlight caressed Alana’s messy curls and how she held the sheet just high enough to hide her chest. He raised an eyebrow.

She let the sheet fall and he returned her wolf whistle wholeheartedly. 

Then Buster jumped up on her lap and started licking her face.

He couldn’t say which one of them broke out laughing first, but it didn’t matter. It felt good to laugh, long and hard, as she pulled the sheet from the bed and wore it like a makeshift toga to the bathroom. She was blushing to the tips of her ears. 

How could she still be so shy after being together so long?

It didn’t really matter, he found her modesty every bit as appealing as the rest of her. 

Throwing on pants but not bothering with a top yet, he whistled for the dogs and headed out the back door. They bounded out with endless energy, embodying mindless joy. Had he ever been that happy? Looking back in through the kitchen window he caught sight of Alana’s glare at the coffee maker and he couldn’t help thinking that yes, he’d finally become as happy as his pack. 

A distant sound of tires crunching over the gravel caught his attention, but from his vantage point on the back deck he couldn’t tell who it was. 

He heard Alana open the front door and invite someone in.

“Who is it?”

No reply came. 

A distant summer thunderhead cloud darkened the horizon as he turned to go inside. “Hello?” The air suddenly felt oppressive and muggy. “Alana?” 

“No.” His stomach dropped out as he found himself pulled in tight against Hannibal, the man’s face that was so often a mask of geniality was twisted in rage. He couldn’t remember seeing Hannibal ever look angry before and this went far beyond simple anger. He almost didn’t feel the knife plunge into him as he watched tears form in the corners of his eyes. A warm hand coated in his own blood held his cheek for just a moment before it pushed him away. 

Stumbling back, he hit the counter awkwardly and collapsed to the floor, arms wrapped around his abdomen as he tried to keep his guts inside. He felt the slick press of muscle through the rush of blood and watched as part of his small intestine fought against the connective tissue, slipping out from between his fingers. Still in shock, the pain didn’t even register yet. This couldn’t be happening, not again. 

He was going to be sick.

But then Hannibal grabbed Alana and the knife slipped across her throat. For a crazed instant he thought maybe Hannibal hadn’t actually pressed the blade to her skin, maybe he’d just pantomimed the act in warning. His hope crumpled as the thin line of red appeared moments before her carotid started spurting in time with her heart, bathing him in the spray of her blood.

“No.” The word tripped out of his mouth, barely more than a breath.

No. This couldn’t be happening. 

Hannibal discarded Alana like she was dross, immaterial in the greater scheme of his plans. Killing her seemed to slack the worst of his rage and he began to compose himself again. However, no amount of composure could hide the demon within that stared out at Will with hungry eyes. He crouched in front of Will, taking his face in his hands. The touch was loving. 

Will couldn’t process how those hands could feel so good on his face even while he bled out from their violence. Shouldn’t they be transformed into something heinous in his mind, so repulsive that the very core of his being rejected even their touch? “Why?”

Lips brushed against his and he couldn’t keep from returning the kiss. Alana lay dying on the other side of his counter and he couldn’t stop himself from accepting Hannibal’s advance. He had already lost too much blood to fill an erection but he could feel his nerves signal for one hopelessly anyway. 

Hannibal batted away Will’s hands from his wound and reached inside him, reached up, up, up, until his entire forearm disappeared within him. 

He gasped as he felt Hannibal’s fingers curl around his heart and begin pumping it for him, keeping the weakening muscle from stopping, forcing him to bleed out faster.

“Why?” 

A cruel laugh. “Oh my dearest boy, you’ve been very, very naughty.” He squeezed Will’s heart too hard, sending pain lancing through him. “You finally reciprocated my interest, only to turn around and dream of  _Alana_?” Her name was all but spat out. “I admit that she is an attractive woman and had her uses, but this is below you.”

It took Will’s fading mind too long to piece together what was being said. When had Hannibal displayed interest in him? 

What was he talking about?

His conscious mind finally gained lucidity within the dream and he was horrified by the implications. “Hannibal.” A spasm of pain silenced him as he doubled over, only leaning as far forward as Hannibal’s arm inside him would allow. His forehead rested against Hannibal’s shoulder and he was grateful he didn’t have to look at his face any longer. “It was a dream. You can’t blame me for my subconscious.”

“Can’t I? You let me into your mind, unlocked the door to let me in. Finally let me see you. Did you think I would stay confined to your aft cabin?” He reached his other hand down to undo Will’s pants, walking fingers over his flaccid groin. “You’re crossing the Atlantic Ocean just to find me. And you think I should let you dream of Alana in the meantime?”

This wasn’t like Hannibal though, was it? Had he been possessive? 

At the first sign of danger, Hannibal had framed him for his crimes and gotten him incarcerated. Then he’d gotten – what – lonely or bored and had arranged for him to be freed. He’d barely reacted when he’d told him that he’d kissed Alana. But would that night have gone differently if Alana hadn’t pushed him away, if he’d come to Hannibal and told him he’d successfully started a relationship with her? But he had offered for them to run away together. There had been a beginning of something he hadn’t had the perspective to see at the time. 

No matter that he was bleeding out, Hannibal’s teasing to his groin still aroused him, as incapable as his body was of reacting to it. 

Teasing fingers changed, pushed under the band of his boxers and took a hold of him, pumping lightly. 

The groan he made was as much from pain as from pleasure, shame flooding him that even in this horrific moment he couldn’t simply hate him. “It’s a dream, Hannibal, nothing more.”

“No, Will, it’s a nightmare.”

Hannibal tore his heart from his chest and bit into it, arteries and veins still connecting the organ to him like lifelines. “I always considered eating your heart.”

He should be horrified, he knew that. Instead he leaned back to watch Hannibal eating his heart, licking his lips. It felt right, Hannibal eating his heart, interring it within himself, trapping it. 

Fuck, he was sick. Hannibal must have infected him with his own brand of madness. Or was it the other way around? Was it possible his encephalitis had infected Hannibal, changing both of them?

Hannibal kissed him again, pushing a bite of his own heart into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed all just to keep kissing him.

“Much better, that’s my boy.”

A shrill beeping shattered the dream and Will awoke with a start, his heart beating faster than if he’d just sprinted the mile. He grabbed at his shirt and ripped it in his haste to expose his stomach, needing to assure himself he wasn’t cut open. But his stomach was fine, the scar just as it was before he’d fallen asleep. He was fine. Everything was fine. Like Hannibal had said, it was just a nightmare. 

His vision was blurry as he looked around, trying to orientate himself. He was at the Nav station, and the pain on his cheek let him know he’d probably fallen asleep against the laptop keyboard again. He checked his watch. It was two days since he’d last seen Hannibal, and after the hate fucking he’d been reticent to allow his imagination to run away with him again. It made sense, in a cruel way, that Hannibal wouldn’t allow him to avoid the issue, not even in an unrelated dream. 

The beeping finally caught his attention again and he put on his glasses. The AIS was the culprit: a proximity warning had come up trying to tell him that a cargo ship was on a collision course for his boat. He clicked on the ship and expanded the data box about it. The Solemnity, a cargo ship registered to the Baltics, was bound for New York. It was still two miles off, so he had time to alter course. Hopefully their radar would have already picked up Nola, but even if they hadn’t he could still keep them from colliding. 

Climbing the companionway, he changed his course on the auto pilot. He looked out the windows of the dodger and stared out at the lit cargo ship. It was off the starboard bow, looming far too close in the darkness. If it was daylight he knew the ship wouldn’t look so intimidating, but the night distorted the distance between them. Light on the waves created pathways between them. 

It was a large cargo ship, he knew that from the AIS data, but in the darkness he couldn’t judge size. All he could tell was that it was a blazing beacon of life, near enough that he could surely reach out and touch another human. With only Abigail on board the crushing weight of isolation had been retarded but not fully banished. Hannibal’s spectre hardly counted. If he wanted to, he could go turn on the VHF radio and hail them, he could talk to strangers, ask about news from the outside world. A broken part of him yearned for it, the sense of connection with another living human being. He wanted to be a faceless member of a crowd, surrounded without being part of them, only touching briefly as he walked by. 

Abigail was asleep below and he yearned for connection. His gut gave a warning twinge to remind him of the dangers of that. Hadn’t his nightmare been warning enough of what could happen when he opened himself up to human contact?

Then again, was Hannibal a human? By this point he’d turned into a mythical figure inside his mind, incapable of being contained by mere reality. He was every bit as powerful as the gods and twice as cruel.

He adjusted the sails as the wind shifted, giving a little sail assist to the motor. The moon was bright enough that he was able to read the tell tails for the jib, so he grinded it in another few turns on the winch. 

Arms wrapped around him and he felt Hannibal lay a cheek against his back. His grip was loose enough to give the illusion that he could break free, but the way those hands clasped over his scar made it clear there was no escape. 

Maybe if he ignored him, he could banish him entirely. Hannibal wasn’t there, he was only in his mind. 

Right.

Cold lips pressed a kiss to the base of his neck, then trailed them up to his jaw. “You’re mine, Will.”

The words froze him in place, anger warring with a spike of arousal he violently denied. ‘Just ignore him. Ignore him and he’ll go away. Hobbs went away whenever you ignored him.’

Teeth closed over the soft tissue of his earlobe and pressed almost daintily. “I’ve staked my claim.” His hands rubbed against the scar through the layers of Will’s shirts. “Do you think I’d allow you to dream of a life with any other?”

This was all just in his head. 

‘Fuck.’

What did that say about his head?

Hannibal didn’t press his advantage, his hands staying firmly above the belt, over clothes, and even his mouth kept things surprisingly tame, content on tasting him rather than taking a bite. 

He needed to get away from Hannibal before his resolve crumbled again. He was constantly playing into his hands and he hated himself for it. He hated that Hannibal made him feel better than anyone else ever had.

He hated that in the dark of night he could convince himself that this was real, rather than a fevered wish he could never admit to. When he arrived in Europe Hannibal wouldn’t react like this; his fantasies would remain in his mind alone.

“Oh, is that what you’re worried about?” Hannibal’s voice was dark chocolate covered pomegranate seeds soaked in brandy. “Then why don’t we practice having you seduce me? You have everything you need to do that. I wanted you to leave with me. I even left you alive.” He grabbed Will’s wrist and suddenly spun him around. “Do you think I would have any resistance to you if you showed me even an ounce of intention?”

Was that what he was worried about, making an advance and being spurned?

Pulling himself from Hannibal’s grasp, he stepped away. “Shut up.”

“What? Still afraid of the truth? Abandonment requires expectation. I’ve given you an expectation of what you could have if you only make the effort.”

He glared at Hannibal, trying to not let the words sink in, but the problem was that it was already coming from inside him. Hannibal was right, he’d already let him in. It wasn’t just the sex, it was the fact that he’d allowed himself to find comfort in him. It was so much worse than just feeling betrayal when they had been friends, because the expectations had raised. 

Whether it was true or not, he didn’t have to seek comfort in Hannibal tonight. He could at least salvage his pride enough to banish him after the stunt he’d pulled in his dream. He latched onto that thought, warming himself with the embers of his anger. That seemed a safer course of action than collapsing into Hannibal’s arms and confessing some deranged variation of love. 

No, not love – obsession. 

They were obsessed with each other, always had been. Sadly, now he knew they always would be. 

The cargo ship was crossing his beam and he looked out to it. “You’re right about one thing.”

Hannibal’s smug smile seemed to say that he was right about far more than just one thing. 

“You have caused me to form expectations.” That much, at least, he couldn’t run away from. “But you’re not Hannibal, no matter how much I might be able to empathise with him. You’re only my imago of him, the way I perceive him.”

With the danger of collision gone, he eased himself down to sit on top of a winch. Balancing on it caused a twinge in his core. “And no matter how well I think I understand him, I can never fully anticipate what he’ll do. Just like he couldn’t anticipate me. That’s our problem, that’s what keeps drawing us back together.” They were both isolated in a world of predictable sheep: listless, lifeless, boring. Hannibal, as much as he hated him, shone like a beacon. 

He rested his face in his hands and let his eyes slip closed. 

When Hannibal didn’t give a rebuttal after a few minutes, he looked up and found him gone. “See? I can never quite predict you. So I need to at least be able to predict my own actions this time.” He couldn’t have a repeat of the kitchen, couldn’t go into their first meeting after that bloody debacle with unclear motivations. 

Hannibal had given him expectations and he hated him for it, because he wanted them met and exceeded. He wasn’t looking for closure, he was looking for continuation. Just like Hannibal had said.

Damn him.  


	12. Chapter 12

Predawn light flattened the island of Sicily, still several hours away at his current pace of sail. It looked like a matte painting, oddly lifeless in the half light and muted colours.  

“Landfall at last, huh?” Abigail stuck her hands in the pockets of her jacket as she came up beside him in the cockpit.  

Will nodded.  

“Not to sound ungrateful, because I can’t wait to get my feet on dry land and have fresh food again, but why Sicily? Gibraltar, Malaga, Algiers, there have been plenty of ports to pull into before now.” 

“Call it a hunch.” 

She gave him a deadpan stare. “You  _suck_  at being mysterious. Just tell me.” 

That got a smile out of him. “The Normal Chapel. It serves as the foyer to Hannibal’s mind palace, so it seems only fitting that we start there. Don’t you think?” 

This time it was her turn to nod in silence. 

“Did he talk to you much about it?” 

“His mind palace?” 

“Mmm.” 

Abigail tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “A little.” After a moment  she seemed to feel unbalanced with having her sole ear showing and pulled the hair back out to cover it. “He said that there were endless rooms inside, some for memories he loved, like large galleries where he could sit and admire the past, and some like oubliettes to hide things he wished he could forget.” 

That was interesting. What would Hannibal have wanted to forget? Surely not his murders or the crimes that society judged him for. What would be so terrible a memory that even Hannibal Lecter would run from it? Will shifted his weight uncomfortably at the thought. “Did he ever say what was in his oubliettes?” 

She shook her head. “He told me that he had made a place for all of us, together. He talked a lot about how you were almost ready to come away with us.” Her voice held a taint of sorrow and disappointment.  

“I was.” 

“Well, in some other lucky world you did, just not here.” 

“We’ll find him, Abigail, and then I’ll fix everything.” 

Her gaze was haunted by doubt before she turned to watch the sunrise over the island. “Where are we pulling in to port again?” 

He knew an uncomfortable segue when he heard one. “Palermo.” 

\--- 

Standing on the dock with his stamped passport in hand, Will felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. He’d done it. He’d really done it. He had crossed the entire Atlantic Ocean. It had only taken three weeks. That was no small feat; plenty of people never took the leap to do blue water sailing. Even his old man had never done anything more adventurous than hire on as a crew hand for a fishing boat or sail the inland waters of the east coast.  

He climbed back onboard Nola and patted her wheel, grinning to himself as he appreciated her hard work as well.  

“You look  _way_  too proud of yourself right now,” Abigail said from the companionway, a lollipop shuttled to one side of her mouth. “Seriously, it’s gross. You’re supposed to look morose or brooding or something. Are you sure you’re the real Will Graham?” 

He laughed at her antics. “What, aren’t I allowed to be happy?” 

“Um, let me think about that.” She pulled out the lolli and tapped it to her pursed lips, then pointed it at him. “No, no you’re not. You’re just about the least happy person I know. Seriously, you need to get out more, live a little.” 

"I think sailing across the Atlantic counts as getting out and living a little.” 

“No-o-o-o. Going out for dinner and going sight-seeing will be living a little. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure you don’t turn into too much of a stick in the mud while we’re hunting down Hannibal. I know how you detective types are, always getting too caught up in your cases.” 

“Oh, you know about detective types now? And where, pray tell, did you learn about us?” 

“Film Noire.” 

Will covered his face, not knowing whether to laugh and roll his eyes. He settled for a chuckle before shaking his head. “You never cease to amaze, Abigail.” 

She gave a mock bow. Then she popped the lolli back in her mouth. “So, what’s the next step? Do we walk up and down the streets yelling ‘Dr. Leo Marvin’ or what?” 

He knew her well enough to know it was a movie reference, although his knowledge of movies paled in comparison to hers. “No. I have a few locations I thought we’d check out first, significant places he’d mentioned before.” 

“And if he’s not haunting the obvious places? Oooh, are we going to kill someone and leave a tableau to draw him in?” 

“That would be one way,” he replied, obviously disapproving. “No, I don’t want to draw too much attention to the fact that I’m here.” He shooed her out of the way as he came down into the main cabin, putting his travel papers back into the Nav station desk. “If he doesn’t turn up at the places I’d expect him to be, then I’ll go back to the beginning and see what clues I can dig up there.” 

She raised an eyebrow. 

“The Lecter Estate.” 

“Ah.” 

Easing himself down onto one of the settees, he leaned his head back and let himself finally begin to relax. “But first things first. I think I need to go lie down and sleep for a week to catch up. I’m utterly exhausted. How about you?” 

“I don’t know about a week, but some getting to sleep through the night would be novel for a change. Those night watches are rough.” She sat down next to him and leaned her head on his shoulder, her hair covering her face as she stared down at their feet. “Hey Will?” 

“Yeah?” 

“What if we can’t find him?” 

He sighed and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her in to a more comfortable position against him. “We will, don’t worry about that. You’re the one who said that he left us alive for a reason. Now have a little faith in me, alright? I hunt down killers for a living. Finding Hannibal shouldn’t be so hard. I’ve already gotten into his head.” 

“Some people would say you never crawled back out.” She wrapped her arms around his waist, holding him loosely. 

This was the most physical affection he’d ever received from her and he was terrified of somehow ruining the moment. “Maybe. He got under my skin, changed so much about myself, made me see things I wasn’t ready to see. I think there are people who we meet in life who change who we are, for better or worse, and there’s nothing we can do about it.” He knew Hannibal had changed him, moulded him into something else. He wouldn’t say that he was some _one_  else, but he wasn’t the same man who had been ambushed by Hannibal in Jack’s office either. Hannibal had broken down his ability to lie to himself, and maybe that was all it had taken to release the monster inside of him.  

Sliding down, she rested her head on his lap and closed her eyes, seeking comfort and yet still holding herself rigidly apart from him.  

He could tell she was suffering under some private pain but he didn’t want to pry. Instead he just started carding his hand through her hair.  

Hannibal had changed both of them, and he didn’t know yet if it was for the better or not.  

\--- 

After two good nights of sleep and a few square meals, Will was starting to feel a little more like himself. He had delayed contacting anyone back in the States, wanting to get into a little clearer mindset before he did anything he’d regret. However there was one message he knew he needed to send off, and that was an email to the dog kennel to see how his hounds were doing. Naturally he’d have to ask for pictures, just to make sure his pups were all being treated well. He missed them fiercely.  

It had been the right decision to leave them behind, but that didn’t mean it had been easy.  

Strong hands began massaging his shoulders as he put the finishing touches on the email. He glowered as he stared at Hannibal’s reflection in his laptop monitor.  

“Don’t be that way. Shouldn’t you be glad to see me? I wanted to wish you well before you begin chasing me all around Europe.” 

He ignored him in favour of closing down the email client and browsing through his apps. He had to have something that would allow him to make a call back to the States. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Hannibal licked his ear. “Fuck! What? What the fuck do you want?” 

“My, my, aren’t we testy today?” 

Twisted halfway around in his seat, he glared at his hallucination.  

Hannibal put up his hands in a show of surrender. It didn’t look genuine at all.  

They stared at each other for a long moment, neither breaking.  

Naturally Will gave up first, knowing Hannibal could be more stubborn than he could. “Why should I be glad to see you?” 

“Oh really, Will.” To demonstrate a point he hadn’t made, he took Will’s chin in hand and ran a thumb over his lips, smirking as he felt a shiver run through him. “At least your body is more honest than your mind.” 

“Being attracted to you is not the same thing as being glad to see you.” He brushed away Hannibal’s hand and turned back to his laptop, opening up a phone program. He hadn’t gotten around to getting a new SIM card for his phone yet. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some calls to make.” 

“Be my guest.” 

Will felt bile rising, “No, I meant leave. I don’t want you hanging around while I talk to people.” 

“Don’t worry, they won’t even know I’m here.” 

Naturally, Hannibal was only in his mind, but that wasn’t the point.  

Hannibal leaned against the edge of the table and watched Will with an innocent expression. “Who are you calling?” 

“Jack and Alana,” he didn’t know why he answered. He didn’t owe Hannibal anything, not this version anyway. 

“Is that wise?” 

Could he strangle one of his hallucinations if he just thought about it hard enough? Counting to ten, he finally replied, “And why is that?” 

“If you tell Jack you’re over in Europe, he’s going to put two and two together. How long do you think it would take before he had the paperwork ready and approved to come over here and track me down with you?” 

There was nothing Will hated more than when Hannibal had a point. “Fine. And why shouldn’t I contact Alana?” 

A dark look passed through Hannibal’s eyes, just a wisp of danger so swift it was almost impossible to catch. “Because I made myself very clear earlier. You’re mine. I won’t have you getting distracted by more thoughts of Alana. I know you wanted her to give you a reason to stay before you left on this trip. I’d rather not have her give you a reason to tuck tail and return without your prize.” 

“My prize being… you?” 

“Precisely.” 

Will pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’d asked her to check in on the dogs for me before I left. Maybe all I want is an update on how they’re doing.” 

“Maybe, but you’ve already written to the kennel. You’ll have an update on them soon enough.” 

“And If I don’t trust them to tell the truth?” 

Hannibal chuffed, “Then you would never have left them in their care. You’re dangerously attached to those hounds. I know you would never have left them in the hands of anyone you didn’t feel you could trust.” 

Once again, Hannibal had him there. That didn’t mean he had to feel good about it. 

“If you have all this spare time to be making calls to the United States, perhaps your time would be better spent looking to see if there were any clues left for you to follow.” 

At least this was a topic he felt a little more comfortable discussing. “That’s the plan. Abigail and I are heading over to the Norman chapel this afternoon.” 

“This afternoon?” Hannibal looked far too interested for Will’s good. 

“Whatever you’re about to suggest, no. Just no.” He had a feeling he knew exactly what Hannibal was going to suggest. “Listen, it was one thing while I was stuck onboard, but I need to get you out of my head. I’m here to chase down the real Hannibal, not make out with his facsimile in my bunk. If I wanted to do that I could have just stayed at home.” 

“No fantasy would have delayed you long.” 

“And no fantasy will delay me now.” He got up from the Nav station, calling out to Abigail, “You about ready to go?” 

She replied through the closed door of the forward cabin, “Now? I thought we were going later.” 

He glared at Hannibal. “Figured we might as well get an earlier start. You were saying you wanted to force me to do sightseeing.” 

A sound of satisfaction filtered through the door. “Just give me a minute, I’ll get changed.”  

\--- 

Filled with the hushed reverence of parishioners and tourists alike, the chapel felt oppressive to Will. A gilt cage of opulence, a trap of worship for appearance’s sake. How many of these old-world churches had been nothing more than pissing contests to show off wealth more than religious dedication or piety? Hannibal probably just loved that, art created for all the wrong religious reasons. How like man to honour his god through peacocking before his fellow man? 

“You’re going to get wrinkles if you keep that up.” Abigail poked the crease between his brows. “Penny for your thoughts?” 

He stepped forward with the procession until he found two open seats, moving to sit down and join the ranks of the diligent rather than the gawkers. All around him people were crossing themselves, kneeling, lighting candles. It all felt uniquely foreign to him. He spoke low to keep from disturbing anyone around them: “Even in an enlightened world, we come here to feel closer to God.”  

“Do you feel closer to God?” 

“God’s not who I came here to find.” 

She contemplated that for a long while, both of them lost in their own worlds. Picking up a bible, she flipped through its well worn pages, the gilt edges all but gone. “ _For God so loved the world…_ _”_ The crease between her brows made it clear that the words were empty and senseless to her.  

Did god love the world?  

“Do you believe in God?”  

He deliberated over his answer before replying. “What I believe is closer to science fiction than anything in the Bible.” Still he reached over and took the book from her, mimicking her action of idly flipping through its pages. He set it down on the empty seat next to him.  

Resting her arms on the seat back in front of her, she clasped her hands as if praying. “We all know, but no one ever says G-dash-D won't do a G-dash-D-damned thing to answer anybody's prayers.” 

Will wondered if it was an act of camouflage for the reverent around them or the big man upstairs. “I'm sure answering prayers can be complicated, otherwise He would do it all the time. God can't save any of us because it's inelegant.”  

“G-dash-D allows bad things to happen because it's... elegant?” Confusion was plain on her face. 

“More elegant than stopping the universe to prevent an earthquake, put out a fire, cure cancer. Elegance is more important than suffering.” He watched an elderly woman, bent and gnarled by age, ease herself down onto a cushion to pray before the altar. He wondered what her prayers might encompass. “That's His design.”  

“Sounds familiar. You talking about God or Hannibal?”  

“Hannibal's not God.” No, thankfully he wasn’t. Hannibal had been a cruel enough god in his own life, he couldn’t imagine the turmoil if he ruled over the rest of the population too. “Wouldn't have any fun being God. Defying God, now that's his idea of a good time. He collects articles on church collapses.” Above his head he could hear the ceiling groan as tiny fractures spread, plaster raining down on them. He looked up and watched the fractures grow into cracks, until finally chunks of sky rained down on the worshipers below. He wiped plaster dust off his shoulder. “He just loves them, thinks that God must love them too.” 

“Why?” 

He rolled the question over in his mind. “Irony and elegance.” 

Her brow furrowed again as she chewed on that. 

A priest walked down the aisle with a lit censer, the incense a heady aroma meant to bring the worshipers closer to God. Or was it an offering to God? He had never figured that out.  

“This is what Hannibal sees when he steps inside the frescoed walls of his own mind,” he whispered as he took in the grandeur of the chapel rather than the press of worshipers inside it.  

“Do you feel closer to him here?”  

He clapped his hands before standing up. “This isn't Hannibal, it's just where he begins. Beyond this, far and complex, light and dark, is the vast structure of his mind. A thousand rooms, miles of corridors. Everything he remembers, wonderfully and fearfully reconstructed.” He made for the side of the room, not wanting to fight against the stream of people still flowing in down the central aisle.   

She rose and followed him, casting a furtive glance at a priest who was watching them. “Why ‘fearfully’?”  

“Because Hannibal is well armed against the physical world, but there are places within himself he can't safely go.” He got to the back door and opened one, holding it for Abigail to exit first. “But we can. If we find them. And that's how we'll find him.” 

\--- 

After the dim serenity of the chapel, the sunlit streets of Palermo was cacophanous and overwhelming. He let himself retreat into his mind, daydreaming of blood offerings to a vengeful god that looked like Hannibal as he walked down the crowded streets, Abigail window shopping in her own little world.  

A sense of deep foreboding clutched him. 

The heart arrived in the chapel four days later. 

\--- 

Armed with the crime scene photos from Inspector Pazzi, Will knew exactly what had been left for them. He sat on the steps before the altar and considered the praying skeleton trapped in the floor. The heart had been installed directly over that morbid reminder of mortality, blood dripping down to revitalise the dead in the catacombs below.  

He thought back to the dream of Hannibal eating his heart, offering a bite to him for consummation. The question was what this bloody valentine meant. Was this a warning of Hannibal’s broken heart, or an attempt to show that he was still willing to give his heart to him? What was Hannibal’s design? How much of what he wanted it to mean was clouding his interpretation of it? 

The horror that it had unfolded into was gone for now, but he felt he knew too what that wretched beast had symbolised.  

Everything was starting again. 

In one way or another, this was the continuation that he’d yearned for. 

Wasn’t it? 

“—ill, Will?” 

He noticed Abigail’s legs in front of him and looked up to her face, silhouetted against the lights above.  

She sat down on the step next to him. 

“I do feel closer to Hannibal here.” A pained, queasy laugh tried to bubble up past his lips but he held it in, knowing this wasn’t the appropriate time or place. Instead he rubbed a hand over his forehead, fingers grinding into his temples. “God only knows where I would be without him.”  

“What did you see?”  

He toyed with the crime scene photo in his hands, pushing the tip of a corner up under his thumbnail. The light press of pain grounded him. “He left us his broken heart.”  

Her gaze swept the empty church. “How did he know we were here?”  

“He didn't. But he knew we'd come.” It was inevitable that they’d come, eventually. And if they hadn’t been there yet, this would have been invitation enough to get them there. He refused to believe that Hannibal was omniscient enough to arrange it all so perfectly. As he’d said earlier, Hannibal wasn’t God.  

“He misses us.”  

Was Hannibal capable of missing them? The photo in his hands told one story; the cleaned and sanitised chapel in front of him told another.  

It was possible. Anything was possible just then. 

“Hannibal follows several trains of thought at once without distraction from any,” he let out a heavy breath and added “and one of the trains is always for his own amusement.” That he knew all too well.  

“He's playing with us,” she amended.  

“Always.” He flicked the photo of the broken man heart in front of her feet, silently daring her to look at the carnage of Hannibal’s interest in them. “You still want to go with him?”  

She swallowed. “Yes.”  

Her faith in his would have been inspiring if he wasn’t worried it was gravely mistaken. He wanted to track Hannibal down as well, but he felt their motivations were still worlds apart. They would never be the happy family that Hannibal had envisioned for them, he was sure of that now. But did that matter? Couldn’t they find their own form of happiness? 

Did Hannibal even want them happy? 

“He gave you back to me. Then took you away. Lucy and the football. He just keeps pulling you away.”  

Abigail didn’t show any sign of recognising the reference and he felt suddenly old. He rolled his lip under his teeth and let it back out. Pain welled up inside of him as his mind finally clicked back into the present. “What if no one died? What if we all left together? Like we were supposed to. After he served the lamb. Where would we have gone?”  

“In some other world?” Her voice was hollow.  

“In some other world.”  

She thought a moment. “He said he made a place for us.”  

Pain broke the damn he’d so hastily constructed, the agonising truth ripping through his fragile fantasy. He couldn’t go through this, couldn’t lose her again, but then – “A place was made for you, Abigail, in this world. The only place I could make for you.” He wanted to reach up and touch her one last time, but he didn’t dare move a muscle.  

She looked over at him in confusion, not understanding what he meant. Then a red line traced itself across her throat, blood welling up to the surface like a string of pearls. It flowed forth, pumping in time with her heart.  

He could feel his own bleeding dry for her, wrung of the last paternal instincts he had. He had nothing more to give her. 

There was no one left to save. 

The spot beside him was empty, no trace of her left in the real world. She had woken with him in the hospital, haunted his home, and crossed the Atlantic Ocean with him, but now she was gone. She’d never been there at all.  

He hung his head and almost wished he believed in God just so he could pray for tears that had long since dried up. 

Alone in the chapel where Hannibal had left him his broken heart, he felt robbed of his own. 


	13. Chapter 13

It felt as if every nerve ending in Will’s body was on fire as he forced his feet to continue shuffling on. He had lost count of how long he’d been walking but it couldn’t have been more than a few hours as the morning hadn’t come yet. In the dark he ignored his injuries, knowing that once he saw them for how bad they were his body would only hurt worse. Apparently being thrown from a train hurt a lot.

Would Hannibal be glad that Chiyoh had thrown him from the train or would that only put a damper on his plans?

He nearly asked Abigail her opinion out of habit before the reality of her death rushed back in to the hole inside him. There was nothing left to do but plod on along the side of the train tracks, knowing that at least he wouldn’t become lost. Without the tracks he would be alone and injured in the middle of a thick forest – a prospect that held no appeal to him. He’d lived on the edges of forests long enough to know the dangers of getting lost in unfamiliar ones.

If he wanted, he could probably dredge up Hannibal to walk beside him, talk to his imago of the man to keep himself company. However, that held no appeal to him. He’d promised himself that he wouldn’t rely on the imagined version of the man after he left the boat, not wanting to further confuse reality by seeking solace in his embrace. It was far too tempting to lose himself that way.

The night was filled with the quiet sounds of a healthy forest: wind through the leaves, the cries of night birds, scant scampering through the underbrush of nocturnal mammals. He didn’t know if there were any predators large enough to pose a threat to humans in the darkness and he had no intention to find out, bloody as he was.

The gravel between railroad slats crunched beneath his feet, making a rhythm that syncopated with his heart. In the relative silence his own blood in his ears and laboured breath felt overloud.

“So,” he asked himself, still too deeply in the habit of talking aloud, “what am I going to do when I find him?” It felt a silly exercise without Abigail there to act as his sounding board, but he knew she had only ever been a part of his own psyche, saying what he’d denied admitting. He could do the same for himself if he were simply honest enough. Honesty with himself wasn’t something he was especially practiced at.

What was he going to do?

His time crossing the Atlantic hadn’t galvanised his will in one direction or another. He’d slowly morphed from one goal to the next, egged on by Abigail and Hannibal.

A knife, weighing as much as his conscience sat in his pocket, presenting one possible option. He could return Hannibal’s forgiveness in kind, cutting him out of his life forever. Injured as he was though, would he be able to pull that off? And did he even want to? Just because his few times tangled with Hannibal hadn’t been real, it didn’t make his budding sexual interest in the man no less potent. Could he forgive him enough to pursue making those dreams reality?

He flexed his fists, feeling the broken skin on his knuckles and palms protest. While he might have a taste for fucking Hannibal, he also wanted to give him a solid right hook, lay him out flat in anger.

If Chiyoh was around, that course of action might get him killed. She was a wild card he hadn’t been expecting and he almost regretted setting her free of her commitment. Then again, no matter how he tried, he couldn’t regret the transfiguration he’d made from the wretch left there. He’d taken a few photos on his phone with the wild idea that maybe – someday – he’d show Hannibal what he’d done for him; because it most certainly had been for Hannibal. He was transforming the man into one of the fireflies that protected Mischa’s grave, giving him a new purpose in the foetid damp and dark.

Would that be peace offering enough? Could he show Hannibal what he’d done and make everything better?

Scrubbing a hand over his face, it came away damp with a fresh trickle of blood. He prodded lightly about his brow to find out where he was still bleeding. He just wanted to find a place to lie down for the night and get some rest, but a sense of urgency drew him onward. He felt so close to Hannibal, so infernally close that he imagined if he just stretched out a hand he would brush against the edge of his shadow.

Because he knew where Hannibal had to be. There was only one place left that made sense for their reunion to happen.

Then again, Hannibal might forego sense in favour of artistry.

The moon came out from behind the clouds. With fresh light he saw that he was nearly out of the woods, both figuratively and literally, because the twinkling lights of a building shone a few miles off. With how near it was to the railroad he could only assume it was a train station. They peppered the landscape. He could get a fresh ticket there, maybe catch a short nap as he waited for the next train and be on his way in a matter of hours.

Anger and bile rose in his throat as he thought about Chiyoh’s face diminishing in the dark as the train sped away from him.

How did Hannibal keep brainwashing people to trust him so blindly? Abigail sacrificing her own ear to fake her death, Alana trusting him over all others, Chiyoh guarding a haunted ruin for years.

Then again, was he exempt? He’d trusted Hannibal once, counted on him to be his foundation and support when all else was crumbling around him. His very sense of sanity had failed and yet he’d implicitly believed that Hannibal would see him through it. Had that trust come from his need to have someone to believe in or Hannibal’s unorthodox treatments? That was a question that no amount of time could answer for him. Each time he prodded too close to it old pains flared to life and he shunted back, afraid of the answer.

Something hot and wet dripped onto his eyelashes and burned his eye, drawing forth a fresh curse as he wiped it away. His hand came away clean. Just sweat then. His skin felt clammy and hot, exertion pairing with hunger. He doubted he’d lost enough blood to really worry. He was banged up and bruised, to be sure, but nothing had bled too profusely. The ache in his chest each time he drew in a breath told him he’d likely bruised or cracked a few ribs. The limp and burning in his left knee was likely a pulled tendon, maybe soft tissue damage.

He had the ridiculous notion that Hannibal would come in handy right about then to assess and tend his wounds. Would be the least he could do after his guard dog had caused them.

\---

The death of Inspector Pazzi was plastered over the news as Will had freshened up that next morning, treating his cuts and bruises as best he could. He’d sat down with a mug of instant coffee that was too light for his liking and had watched enough reports on the man’s untimely demise to get a good idea of where the crime had happened.

Finding Jack at the scene should have been more shocking than it had been, but some part of him had almost expected it. Jack was determined to hunt Hannibal down, even more so than he was in some ways. With this first sign of his whereabouts, Jack would have crossed the globe without a second thought.

Having Jack there officially had its advantages as they weaved their way through crime scene tape and walked up the stairs to Hannibal’s work, a macabre display of torture equipment. Fitting. As they sidestepped the glass and damaged displays, Jack recounted his own struggle with him here.

Would he have found Hannibal already if he hadn’t detoured to the Lecter estate? It was inconsequential either way, because he’d needed to see Hannibal’s past. It had been the final piece he’d been missing, a puzzle piece in the shape of a little broken girl named Mischa.

An ivory carving caught his eye and he picked it up, knowing just enough about religious themes to correctly identify the piece as depicting the hanging of Judas Iscariot. The carving was old, there was no doubt of that. He wondered if Hannibal had held it as well, almost convinced himself that he could feel the faint trace of his energy. Their lives were overlapping again. Soon he’d track him down and confront him. He’d have either the closure or the continuation he wanted. Either way, soon his search would be over.

“He’s wounded.” Jack’s words broke the silence of their respective reveries. “He’s worried.”

“Hannibal doesn’t worry.” The very notion of it was almost enough to make him laugh. After all this time, Jack still didn’t understand Hannibal. He kept thinking of him as some darker version of an ordinary human, but Hannibal wasn’t like anyone else. He couldn’t be defined in simple notions of humanity. “Knowing he’s in danger wouldn’t rattle him anymore than killing does.” He put the carving down and sidestepped more broken glass, noticing a speck of blood on a jagged edge. It would take one sample of blood to prove it was Hannibal Lecter that they were after.

“If Pazzi had decided to do his job as an officer of the law, we would have determined very quickly that it was Hannibal Lecter. It would have taken thirty minutes to get a warrant.”

Which meant they hadn’t gotten a warrant yet. Will hadn’t expected there would be one, Jack had already proven he would do whatever was necessary to catch Hannibal; and apparently so would the late Inspector Pazzi, only for different reasons. Greed was an old and all too common motivation for man. “Those resources were denied to Pazzi, soon as he decided to sell Hannibal and became a bounty hunter.” A pity, he’d respected the man before this, but having decided to sell Hannibal left a bitter taste in his mouth and lessened his opinion of him.

“Outside the law, alone.”

He walked passed Jack, eyes trained on the displays of horror all around them.

Jack tried again. “So here we are, outside the law.”

“Have you told the Policia they’re looking for Hannibal Lecter?”

“They’re motivated to find Dr. Fell, inside the law. Knowing who he is, what he’s worth, would just coax them out of bounds.” It was a justification, even if Pazzi’s recent actions had proven there was some merit to it.

Glass crunched underfoot, a piece he’d missed as he’d considered Jack’s point. He kicked it aside. “It would be a free for all.”

“And Hannibal would slip away.” He drew in a breath. “Will you slip away with him?”

It wasn’t quite an accusation, but it was close. He had confided to Jack before he left that he’d wanted to leave with Hannibal. They both knew that truth. Jack didn’t know everything that had gone through his head as he’d crossed the ocean to find Hannibal though and he felt no loyalty to Jack in order to tell him. The past truth was good enough for them. “Part of me will always want to.”

“You have to cut that part out.”

He scoffed quietly. How simple Jack made that sound. Just cut out a part of your heart, toss it away like so much dross. Could Jack do that if their situations were reversed? If it was Bella who was the killer on the run? Could he cut out the part of him that loved her and hunt her down? It was a partially flawed analogy, but the problem was that he did love Hannibal. Abigail had shown him that. No, best not to think of her here. He was already angry at Jack and he didn’t want to accidentally transmute the blame for her death to Jack.

Better to just think of the case before him.

“Of course you found him here. Not because of the exhibit,” he clarified, almost looking back to him, “but because of the crowd it attracts.” All those good, lawful people who came with cruelty in their eyes to look at the horrors of the past. How many of them piqued Hannibal’s interest, or had he simply soaked up the ambiance rather than look for any one victim in particular? Hannibal could just marinate in the broth of human depravity. “You had him Jack. He was beaten. Why didn’t you kill him?”

A beat of silence. “Maybe I need you to.”

And there it was. Jack didn’t trust him. It didn’t surprise him. Had their positions been reversed he wouldn’t have trusted himself either. He was compromised in every sense of the word. Still it stung to feel the weight of Jack’s distrust. However, it did make what he was planning on doing easier.

\----

People walked around Will, his wounds and bruises enough to cause most people to give him a wide berth. It was a subconscious gesture of gentile folk. He didn’t mind. Walking slowly through the gallery, he let himself examine the paintings at leisure, knowing that Hannibal was here and doubting he’d leave any time soon. Some part of his mind that had built Hannibal up into a mythic figure, imagined that the man already knew he was there, that somehow through the throngs of people Hannibal would be able to detect his scent above all others. He hadn’t bothered with aftershave when he’d attempted to freshen up at the hotel that morning, just in case the familiar scent would give his presence away.

A security guard passed through the room, only to get stopped by a gaggle of school children who pulled him away to explain a nearby painting. For a long moment he watched the kindly guard take the time to lecture to the children, answering questions to the delight of their teachers. It was a perfectly natural sight to see, so out of place for the potentially dangerous reunion he knew lay ahead of him.

He made another slow circuit of the gallery, emotions too keyed up to truly appreciate the wealth of art around him. Art galleries weren’t his idea of a pleasant afternoon, but he’d spent enough time in Hannibal’s mind to know why they drew the man. It was a demonstration of the best of humanity, rather than the daily offerings of raw meat and rudeness.

Finally, he forced himself to stop in the same room as Hannibal, still off far enough to be separated by the crowd.

He stared at the man’s back, his posture for once less than perfect as he focused on the sketchbook in his lap. From this angle he couldn’t see the sketchbook or what Hannibal was working on, but with him seated directly in front of the _Primavera_ he was willing to hazard a guess. It seemed that Inspector Pazzi’s clue about Il Mostro held true. The man was still entranced by beauty, both in form and function.

He didn’t know how long he stood there, watching the subtle play of muscles over Hannibal’s back as he sketched, working up the last necessary amount of resolve to cross the room and confront him. The crowds fell away in his mind until it was just the two of them alone. It was peaceful, watching him like this without his knowing. There had been so few occasions to see Hannibal when he wasn’t aware of being watched. Even his own imago of him had never had an unconscious moment where he could observe him unannounced. Hannibal had always come to him like a performer, powdered and primped and ready to be on display. A bloody peacock.

However, he couldn’t put off this meeting forever. As interesting as it was watching him like this, the temptation to cross the room and interact was too great to deny for long. He nearly held his breath as he crossed the room, a mongoose creeping up on a preoccupied cobra. There was a subtle motion of Hannibal’s head and he knew the game was already over; Hannibal knew he was there even if he wasn’t going to deny him his entrance.

And then all at once he was facing him directly as he took a seat next to him on the bench, scant inches between them. He’d crossed an entire ocean to find him and yet that last chasm of distance between them seemed vital to maintain. He didn’t know what he would do if they crossed it, his thoughts no clearer now than they had been in the cockpit of Nola or as he’d walked down the railroad the night before. He thought of the fateful phone call that night. Would it take hearing Hannibal’s voice once again to make up his mind? Kiss or kill or punch or fuck? So many possible scenarios ran through his mind.

What Jack wanted was clear.

What Abigail had wanted was clear.

He looked at Hannibal’s battered face, so perfectly matching his own. Fitting that in this reunion neither of them had escaped the wrath of either’s retinue. There was an unexpected warmth in Hannibal’s eyes as he looked upon him, enough that it gave him the first inkling of hope. A blasted, villainous thing – hope.

“If I saw you every day forever Will, I would remember this time.” Hannibal set his hand over his closed sketchbook.

If that wasn’t a classic Hannibal greeting, he didn’t know what was. There were so many ways he could take that. He struggled to make his face settle on a single expression, but too many flew about inside him, the hopes and fears of months of recovery and weeks at sea. “Strange seeing you here in front of me. I’ve been staring at afterimages of you in places you haven’t been in years.” He thought of the Lecter estate, filled with its ghosts and its dead, fireflies guarding sentinel over the graves. Hannibal hadn’t been there since his youth, and yet he’d needed to go there, maybe because Hannibal couldn’t. And he thought of Hannibal on his boat, somewhere Hannibal had never been. There would forever be an afterimage of the man inside him mind, whether he wanted him there or not.

“To market, to market, to buy a fat pig. Home again, home again, jiggity jig.”

He didn’t let the enigmatic reply slow him down. “I needed to understand you, before I laid eyes on you again. I needed it to be clear.” He thought of the factors that had shaped Hannibal; not made him though, never that. Hannibal was right about that much, nothing happened to him, he happened. Mischa was a catalyst for what was already inside him. Maybe Abigail had been a potential replacement for her, or perhaps she’d been nothing more than a sacrifice to bond them more fully together. So many tools used and left in his wake. “Mischa, Abigail, Chiyoh.”

He brightened at her name. “How is Chiyoh?”

“She pushed me off a train.”

“Atta girl.” The grin he gave was parental and genuine. His eyes wandered over Will’s face.

Will couldn’t help smiling, as absurd as it was. She had pushed him off a train and Hannibal was congratulating her. Of course he would. “You and I have begun to blur.”

He considered that. “Isn’t that how you found me?”

It was, but that wasn’t the point of the matter. They were blurring, their edges diffusing into one another. Even now it felt like if he reached out and touched him, he might dissolve entirely within him. “Every crime of yours feels like one I’m guilty of. Not just Abigail’s murder, every murder, stretching backwards and forwards in time.” And there was the rub: it wasn’t just the past that was overlapping, it was their futures.

The impact of that statement didn’t seem lost on him. “Freeing yourself from me and me freeing myself from you, they’re the same.”

“We’re conjoined. I’m curious whether either of us can survive separation.”

Hannibal gave him a knowing smile. “That is the test, not letting the rage and frustration, nor forgiveness, keep you from thinking.” Tucking his sketchbook under his arm, he rose to his feet. “Shall we?”

Under different circumstances Will might have spared the _Primavera_ another glance – it certainly deserved it – but his eyes were rivetted to the man in front of him, finally in front of him. “After you.”

They strode side by side through the gallery and out into the light.

Denial was the armour he had built for himself against the truth he couldn’t accept – that he was no longer the good man he had lived his entire life trying to be. He had chased down the monster, but not to kill him this time. He had set out on his trip telling himself that he wanted closure, and in a way that was still true, however his time with Hannibal’s imago had shown him that closure held far less appeal to him than continuation. He wanted to feel Hannibal for real, wanted to stretch out and run his hand over his skin, add the texture of his cuts to his mental image of him. He wanted to see new crime scenes made by Hannibal and laugh at the fact that no one else could catch them. He wanted to prove that he had made his own place beside Dr. Hannibal Lecter and that he deserved to be there.

He needed to prove that they could leave the past behind them in their collective wake and sail on to a new horizon.

Under the light of the open sky, he pulled the knife from his pocket, holding it by the blade. Reaching over to present Hannibal with the hilt, he asked, “Have you ever fantasised about fuc--.”

A bullet ripped through his shoulder and spun him around, the knife dropping to the ground. Chiyoh couldn’t have picked a worst possible time to interrupt them.


End file.
